This page includes materials on US relations with the world, with a special focus on Northeast Asia and, inevitably, the Middle East. And so Britain is brought into it. And sometimes I stray further afield, when something catches my eye. Prior to 2005 it was called 'US and the world'

• What We Can Learn from the Brookings Institution
  At the end of 1947 the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. received a request from the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to come up with specific measures for a European aid plan proposed by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall. The institution devoted all of its manpower to the task and came up with a 20-page report in four weeks. The Brookings report, which contained eight specific proposals, including aid structure, focus and implementation steps, became the basis of the Marshall Plan that pulled Europe out of the ashes of World War Two and toward economic revival. [Thinktanks]
• When textile quotas end this week, will U.S. jobs go, too?
  By Lisa Zagaroli | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — As the head of one of the largest yarn manufacturers in the world, Anderson Warlick doesn't mind going up against other businesses. Competing with Chinese products, however, feels like taking on an entire foreign government. The chief executive of Parkdale Mills in Gastonia, N.C., is worried that already tough competition from China will get far worse after Wednesday, when the remaining U.S. limits on imports of certain textile products expire. "It's a very serious issue, and it could be devastating for the industry," Warlick said. "I think the entire textile chain will be affected." At issue are limits on the number of cotton trousers, golf shirts, babies' socks and more than 30 other textile products that China can export to the United States. The quotas expire at the end of this year, and, under a World Trade Organization agreement, the U.S. government can't reimpose restrictions on Chinese textiles. [Protectionism] [Spin] [China competition]
• CBS newsman's $70m lawsuit likely to deal Bush legacy a new blow
  Christopher Goodwin in Los Angeles The Observer, Sunday 28 December 2008 Article historyAs George W Bush prepares to leave the White House, at least one unpleasant episode from his unpopular presidency is threatening to follow him into retirement. A $70m lawsuit filed by Dan Rather, the veteran former newsreader for CBS Evening News, against his old network is reopening the debate over alleged favourable treatment that Bush received when he served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. Bush had hoped that this controversy had been dealt with once and for all during the 2004 election. Eight weeks before the 2004 presidential poll, Rather broadcast a story based on newly discovered documents which appeared to show that Bush, whose service in the Texas Air National Guard ensured that he did not have to fight in Vietnam, had barely turned up even for basic duty. After an outcry from the White House and conservative bloggers who claimed that the report had been based on falsified documents, CBS retracted the story, saying that the documents' authenticity could not be verified. Rather, who had been with CBS for decades and was one of the most familiar faces in American journalism, was fired by the network the day after the 2004 election. [Media]
• Tangled U.S. Objectives Bring Down Spy Firm
  Private Agents Snared Afghan Drug Kingpin
  By Richard Leiby Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 27, 2008; Page A01 After a federal jury in New York swiftly convicted a major Afghan heroin trafficker and Taliban supporter named Haji Bashir Noorzai, the government promptly issued the usual celebratory news release thanking the men and women of the DEA and FBI for their "countless sacrifices" in making the case. Left out was any credit to the party most responsible for the government's victory: an unusual three-man private intelligence firm called Rosetta Research and Consulting. At the instigation of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Rosetta agents lured Noorzai to America and delivered him right into the feds' hands. He spent 11 days in an Embassy Suites Hotel in Manhattan in 2005, enjoying room service and considering himself a guest of the U.S. government -- until he was arrested. He was imprisoned for three years awaiting his trial, which concluded in September. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced in January. [Privatisation] [Renege]
• How Russia Courts the Muslim World
  Russia is seeking strong political relations not only with Iran and Syria, but also with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey - which have long been close allies of the United States, notes Jacques Lévesque. 2008-12-26 Vladimir Putin was the first head of a non-Muslim majority state to speak at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a gathering of 57 Muslim states, in October 2003. That was a political and diplomatic feat, especially since Russia was waging a long-running war in Chechnya at the time. Putin stressed that 15% of the total population of the Russian Federation are Muslim, and that all the inhabitants of eight of its 21 autonomous republics are Muslim, and he won observer member status with the organisation, thanks to support from Saudi Arabia and Iran. Since then, Putin and other Russian leaders, including the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claim that Russia “is, to some extent, a part of the Muslim world.” In an interview with Al Jazeera on 16 October 2003, Putin stressed that, unlike Muslims living in western Europe, those in Russia were indigenous and that Islam had been present on Russian territory long before Christianity. So Russia now claims to have a privileged political relationship with the Arab and Muslim world and believes that, as a mostly European state, it has a historic vocation as a mediator between the western and Muslim worlds. [Islam] [Resurgence]
• Government slams C4 over Ahmadinejad Christmas message
  Haroon Siddique and agencies guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 December 2008 15.27 GMT Article historyThe government has criticised Channel 4's decision to broadcast an alternative Christmas message by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A foreign and commonwealth office spokeswoman said today that the move would cause offence around the world.
  Speaking in Farsi with English subtitles, he will say: "Jesus, the Son of Mary, is the standard bearer of justice, of love for our fellow human beings, of the fight against tyranny, discrimination and injustice. "If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers." [Propaganda] [Media]
• Eartha Kitt, a Seducer of Audiences, Dies at 81
  By ROB HOERBURGER Published: December 25, 2008 Eartha Kitt, who purred and pounced her way across Broadway stages, recording studios and movie and television screens in a show-business career that lasted more than six decades, died on Thursday. She was 81 and lived in Connecticut.
  But she took the steeliness with her, in a willful, outspoken manner that mostly served her career, except once. In 1968 she was invited to a White House luncheon and was asked by Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War. She replied: “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot.” The remark reportedly caused Mrs. Johnson to burst into tears and led to a derailment in Ms. Kitt’s career. As bookings dried up, she was exiled in Europe for almost a decade. But President Jimmy Carter invited her back to the White House in 1978, and that year she earned her first Tony nomination for her work in “Timbuktu!,” an all-black remake of “Kismet.” [Imperialism] [Human rights]
• Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan
  By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 26, 2008; Page A01 The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift. Four blue pills. Viagra. "Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam. The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills. For U.S. intelligence officials, this is how some crucial battles in Afghanistan are fought and won. While the CIA has a long history of buying information with cash, the growing Taliban insurgency has prompted the use of novel incentives and creative bargaining to gain support in some of the country's roughest neighborhoods, according to officials directly involved in such operations. [Imperialism] [Corruption]
• The Pentagon is muscling in everywhere. It's time to stop the mission creep.
  By Thomas A. Schweich Sunday, December 21, 2008; Page B01 We no longer have a civilian-led government. It is hard for a lifelong Republican and son of a retired Air Force colonel to say this, but the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of civilian government. Our Constitution is at risk.
  President-elect Barack Obama's selections of James L. Jones, a retired four-star Marine general, to be his national security adviser and, it appears, retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair to be his director of national intelligence present the incoming administration with an important opportunity -- and a major risk. These appointments could pave the way for these respected military officers to reverse the current trend of Pentagon encroachment upon civilian government functions, or they could complete the silent military coup d'etat that has been steadily gaining ground below the radar screen of most Americans and the media.
  In short, he should retake the government before it devours him and us -- and return civilian-led government to the people of the United States. Thomas A. Schweich served the Bush administration as ambassador for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan and deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement affairs. [Pentagon] [Militarisation] [Softpower]
• Outlook: Make Sure Civilians Call the Shots
  Thomas A. Schweich Outlook Contributor Monday, December 22, 2008; 11:00 AM
  Thomas A. Schweich, a former Bush Administration official, was online Monday, December 22 to discuss his Outlook article on the increasing influence of the military in many areas of our government. Schweich served the Bush administration as ambassador for counter-narcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan, deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement affairs and chief of staff to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. A transcript follows.
• White House Memo White House Divergence After 8 Years
  By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG Published: December 24, 2008 WASHINGTON — President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been unusually talkative in recent weeks, sharing candid thoughts in a string of exit interviews. But after eight years of a tight partnership that gave Mr. Cheney powerful influence inside the White House, the two are sounding strikingly different notes as they leave office, especially on one of the most fundamental issues of their tenure: their aggressive response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Bush defends his decisions as necessary to keep the nation safe, yet sounds reflective, even chastened. He has expressed regrets about not achieving an overhaul of immigration laws and not changing the partisan tone in Washington. And the man who got tangled up in a question about whether he had made any mistakes — he could not come up with one in 2004 — recently told ABC News that he was “unprepared for war,” and that “the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq.” Mr. Cheney, by contrast, is unbowed, defiant to the end. He called the Supreme Court “wrong” for overturning Bush policies on detainees at Guantánamo Bay; criticized his successor, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and defended the harsh interrogation technique called waterboarding, considered by many legal authorities to be torture. “I feel very good about what we did,” the vice president told The Washington Times, adding, “If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.” The difference in tone, friends and advisers say, reflects a split over Mr. Bush’s second-term foreign policy, which Mr. Cheney resisted as too dovish. It also reveals their divergent approaches to post-White House life. Mr. Bush, who is planning a public policy center in Dallas, is trying to shape his legacy by offering historians a glimpse of his thinking, while Mr. Cheney, primarily concerned about the terrorist threat, is setting the stage for a role as a standard-bearer for conservatives on national security. “The president’s interviews are about creating a basis for historians to evaluate the context of his decisions differently, with more input from him,” said Wayne Berman, who has advised Mr. Bush and is a longtime friend of Mr. Cheney. “Cheney is living in the moment of, ‘There’s a serious ongoing threat,’ and I believe he sees himself more in a Churchill-like role, as the sentinel issuing the call for vigilance.” Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney still have lunch together once a week, administration officials say, and the vice president remains the president’s staunchest defender. But while Mr. Cheney has been ”loyal to a fault,” said John R. Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations whose views often reflect those of the vice president, he is also “increasingly in a beleaguered position.” In the first term, Mr. Cheney, backed by his close ally, Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was then the defense secretary, was ascendant, and his views about the aggressive use of executive authority and military might held great sway. But after Mr. Bush fired Mr. Rumsfeld in 2006 — the only presidential decision Mr. Cheney has publicly disagreed with — the vice president took a back seat to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who pushed the president to pursue greater diplomacy with two countries he once called “rogue nations,” Iran and North Korea. [Cheney] [Dissension]
• U.S. and Afghans Plan to Recruit Local Militias
  By DEXTER FILKINS KABUL, Afghanistan — Taking a page from the successful experiment in Iraq, American commanders and Afghan leaders are preparing to arm local militias to help in the fight against a resurgent Taliban. But along with hope, the move is raising fears here that the new armed groups could push the country into a deeper bloodletting. The militias will be deployed to help American and Afghan security forces, which are stretched far and wide across this mountainous country. The first of the local defense forces are scheduled to begin operating early next year in Wardak Province, an area just outside the capital where the Taliban have overrun most government authority. If the experiment proves successful, similar militias will be set up rapidly across the country, senior American and Afghan officials said. The formation of Afghan militias comes on the heels of a similar undertaking in Iraq, where 100,000 Sunni gunmen, many of them former insurgents, have been placed on the government payroll. [Fragmentation]
• What Clinton thinks about India, Guantanamo Bay and other pivotal foreign policy issues.
  By Joanna Klonsky, Council On Foreign Relations Dec 1, 2008 | Updated: 3:41 p.m. ET Dec 1, 2008 Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary Of State Nominee Hillary Clinton's selection to serve as Barack Obama's secretary of State follows her strong race for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination against him. Clinton was among a number of top national security officials named by Obama on December 1. Obama said he would nominate Robert M. Gates to remain as defense secretary, and nominated Gen. James L. Jones, a retired Marine commandant, for national security adviser, Eric H. Holder Jr. for attorney general, Susan Rice as ambassador the UN, and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano for homeland security secretary.
  North Korea Policy In January 2006, Clinton said failure to hold direct talks with North Korea gave Pyongyang an "open invitation" to process plutonium. She advocated direct contact with North Korea and, in a letter she cosigned to President Bush in June 2006, described multilateral Six-Party Talks as "fruitless" (PDF) in their goal of controlling North Korea's nuclear program. Still, in February 2008, Clinton said she would not meet with leaders from North Korea and other U.S. adversaries "without preconditions" (USA Today).
• Hillary Clinton on Military Policy
  Stephen Zunes | December 12, 2007 While much attention has been given to Senator Hillary Clinton’s support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, her foreign policy record regarding other international conflicts and her apparent eagerness to accept the use of force appears to indicate that her fateful vote authorizing the invasion and her subsequent support for the occupation and counter-insurgency war was no aberration. Indeed, there’s every indication that, as president, her foreign policy agenda would closely parallel that of the Bush administration. Despite efforts by some conservative Republicans to portray her as being on the left wing of the Democratic Party, in reality her foreign policy positions bear a far closer resemblance to those of Ronald Reagan than they do of George McGovern.
  Senator Clinton also criticized the Bush administration’s decision to include China, Japan and South Korea in talks regarding North Korea’s nuclear program and to allow France, Britain and Germany to play a major role in negotiations with Iran, claiming that instead of taking “leadership to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of rogue states and terrorists … we have outsourced over the last five years our policies.” In essence, as president, Hillary Clinton would be more unilateralist and less prone to work with other nations than the Bush administration on such critical issues as non-proliferation.
• She'd be perfect for the job. (Not.)
  By David Harsanyi Posted: 11/19/2008 12:30:00 AM MST Updated: 11/19/2008 05:41:07 AM MST
  What will Barack Obama's foreign policy look like during his first term? From his rousing words, we can ascertain that it will feature equal quantities of peace, love and understanding — except for Osama bin Laden and Taliban types, who will be obliterated "once and for all." The nation can look forward to an administration that, as Obama has explained, appreciates judgment over experience. As long as you overlook Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel — and, apparently, Hillary Clinton — for the time being, this theory holds solid. If rumors are true, Obama will display his breathtaking political shrewdness by tapping former rival Clinton as secretary of state. She deserves it. (Henry Kissinger says it's a good idea, for God's sake.)
  With that appointment, the president-elect would send a unifying message to his party and a weary nation. So it's too bad the prospective appointment clashes with virtually every pronouncement Obama made regarding foreign policy in the past.
• On Clinton as SecState
  Jim Lobe
  Assuming for the sake of argument that Obama and Clinton are not as far apart on substantive policy issues, such as Iraq and Iran, as both candidates suggested during the primary campaign, I still believe Hillary’s appointment will prove a serious strategic error on Obama’s part, particularly if, as reported, she is given the authority to pick top officials at State, presumably from deputy secretary all the way down to deputy assistant secretary level. If the appointment does indeed take place, it’s hard to imagine a situation where Obama could fire her without incurring an extremely heavy political cost, including the possibility that she could challenge him in 2012. That state of affairs gives her an extraordinary amount of power and independence. And if she or her subordinates at State — think Richard Holbrooke as deputy secretary, for example — assert that independence by failing to coordinate adequately with the White House, foreign interlocutors could become very confused and feel required to develop all kinds of “back channels” to the various players. Such a situation would be rendered even more likely if the National Security Council staff — presumably overseen by Gen. Jones as national security adviser — consists primarily of Obama loyalists, while State is dominated by officials who supported Clinton during the campaign. Normal bureaucratic rivalries that afflict the foreign-policy apparatus of virtually every administration (George H.W. Bush’s excepted) would, under those circumstances, likely be compounded by the feelings of political — and even personal — betrayal left over from the primary battles, regardless of the wishes and mutual goodwill of the two principals. [Dissension]
• Obama the Centrist?
  The president-elect can boast of a moderate cabinet, but radical transformation remains his goal.
  By Charles Krauthammer
  Barack Obama has garnered praise from center to right — and has highly irritated the left — with the centrism of his major appointments. Because Obama’s own beliefs remain largely opaque, his appointments have led to the conclusion that he intends to govern from the center. Obama the centrist? I’m not so sure. Take the foreign policy team: Hillary Clinton, James Jones, and Bush holdover Robert Gates. As centrist as you can get. But these choices were far less ideological than practical. Obama has no intention of being a foreign-policy president. Unlike, say, Nixon or Reagan, he does not have aspirations abroad. He simply wants quiet on his Eastern and Western fronts so that he can proceed with what he really cares about — his domestic agenda.
• US firms now control UK's nuclear weapons plant
  By DAVID STRINGER – 3 days ago LONDON (AP) — Britain's government said Friday that a state-owned nuclear group has sold its stake in the company that manages the U.K.'s atomic weapons research center, bringing the facility under the control of U.S. companies. British Nuclear Fuels PLC has sold a one-third share in Britain's AWE Management Ltd. to Jacobs Engineering Group Inc, based in Pasadena, California. AWE Management has a contract to operate the government-owned Atomic Weapons Establishment, which has facilities in Aldermaston and Burghfield in southern England, through 2025. The sale means that operations at the center, which makes and maintains warheads for Britain's nuclear missiles, is now under the control of U.S. companies.
• Saudi girl, eight, married off to 58-year-old is denied divorce
  Ian Black, Middle East editor The Guardian, Tuesday 23 December 2008 Article historyAn eight-year old Saudi Arabian girl who was married off by her father to a 58-year-old man has been told she cannot divorce her husband until she reaches puberty. Lawyer Abdu Jtili said the divorce petition was filed by the unnamed girl's divorced mother in August after the marriage contract was signed by her father and the groom. "The judge has dismissed the plea because she [the mother] does not have the right to file, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told the AFP news agency. [Islam]
• Clinton Moves to Widen Role of State Dept.
  By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER Published: December 22, 2008 WASHINGTON — Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis.
  The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president’s office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over American foreign policy. [Pentagon] [Dissension]
• Plunge in Exports Reverberates Across Asia
  Japan Reports Record Drop as Regional Trade Slows; Toyota Warns of First Loss in 70 Years By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 23, 2008; Page A01 Japan reported yesterday that its exports plunged a record 27 percent in November, signaling a dramatic deterioration in the world's second-largest economy and the collapse of the export-led boom that had lifted many Asian nations. Indeed, even mighty Toyota said yesterday that it would post its first operating loss in seven decades, providing a vivid example of how some of the world's most profitable companies have been quickly humbled by the global recession. Japan's stunning decline in exports is being echoed across Asia, where country after country is reporting data that have exceeded even the grimmest forecasts. Thailand said yesterday that its exports in November fell by nearly 19 percent, the most in 17 years. Similarly, Taiwan's exports fell 23 percent in November, and a government report on future export orders set to be released today is expected to show another steep drop. "Everyone is tanking together. A fall of 27 percent is really striking and portends substantially greater weakness," said Easwar Presad, a senior professor of trade policy at Cornell University. "The bottom line is that many of these countries that relied on export-led growth will have to rely on domestic demand to get out of this thing." China had reported that its November exports took their biggest dive in seven years -- a drop that has reverberated across Asia because China has become the largest export market for many of its neighbors. Japanese shipments to China fell 25 percent, the steepest decline in 13 years, the Japanese Finance Ministry said. As much as 50 percent of China's trade is related to processing -- buying semiconductors and other parts from Japan, South Korea and other neighbors and then assembling them at low cost into finished products for companies such as Sony, Panasonic and Samsung. China, in effect, is the final assembly station for vast global production networks, which are now sputtering to a halt.
• US military 'to defy' Iraqi pact
  By Gareth Porter
  WASHINGTON - United States military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the US-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete pullout of all US combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops. The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling US troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the US military has never accepted and a way of blocking president-elect Barack Obama's proposed plan for withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office. By redesignating tens of thousands of combat troops as support troops, those officials apparently hope to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to insist on getting all combat troops of the country by mid-2010. General David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative plan rejecting that timeline, as the New York Times reported on Thursday. That plan was communicated to Obama in general terms by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen when he met with his national security team in Chicago on December 15, according to the Times. The determination of the military leadership to ignore the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and to pressure Obama on his withdrawal policy was clear from remarks made by Mullen in a news conference on November 17 - after US ambassador Ryan Crocker had [Pentagon] [Spin]
• All roads lead out of Afghanistan
  By M K Bhadrakumar The measure of success of president-elect Barack Obama's new "Afghan strategy" will be directly proportional to his ability to delink the war from its geopolitical agenda inherited from the George W Bush administration. It is obvious that Russia and Iran's cooperation is no less critical for the success of the war than what the US is painstakingly extracting from the Pakistani generals. Arguably, Obama will even be in a stronger negotiating position vis-a-vis the tough generals in Rawalpindi if only he has Moscow and Tehran on board his Afghan strategy. But then, Moscow and Iran will expect that Obama reciprocates with a willingness to jettison the US's containment strategy towards them. The signs do not look good. This is not only from the look of Obama's national security team and the continuance of Robert Gates as defense secretary.
• Pakistan: Obama's Nightmare
  by Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 247, December 15, 2008 On the evening of Nov. 26, 2008, a small group of 10 persons attacked two luxury hotels and other sites in central Mumbai (India) and, over several days, managed both to kill and hurt a very large number of persons and to create massive material destruction in the city. It took several days before the slaughter was brought to an end. It is widely believed that the attacks were the work of a Pakistani group called Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a group thought to be similar in motivation to al-Qaeda, perhaps directly linked to it. The world press immediately called the Mumbai massacres the 9/11 of India, a repetition of the attacks al-Qaeda launched against the United States in 2001. The motivations and strategy of al-Qaeda in 2001 were largely misunderstood in 2001, both by the U.S. government and by analysts. The same thing risks happening now.
  But Pakistan requires a decision. If a Pakistani government is to survive, it will have to be one that can show it holds its own geopolitically. This will not be at all easy, given the internal situation, and an angry Indian public opinion. If there is anywhere where Obama can act intelligently, this is the place.
• A peek into Iran's nuclear Pandora's box
  By Sreeram Chaulia The contention of a senior Russian diplomat, Vladimir Voronkov, that Iran is presently incapable of developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them has reopened an international Pandora's box. The comments by Voronkov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of European Cooperation, cast doubts on, if not contradict, Israel's assessment that Iran is rapidly gaining nuclear-weapons capability in the guise of "peaceful" electricity generation. Russia's word has a notable significance on the matter because it enjoys unparalleled access to Iran's nuclear facilities. Russian engineers working for a Russian company are building Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor and are in daily touch with Iranian ground realities. Voronkov buttressed his claim by adding, "This information is confirmed by all the services responsible for the collection and analysis of information." If Moscow's combined intelligence agencies are in agreement that Iran does not have nuclear-weapons capability, it calls for serious rethinking about whether the "crisis" built up over Tehran going nuclear was nothing but a bogey to roll back its rise as the impresario of a Shi'ite resurgence in the Middle East. [Camouflage]
• Disarming Ourselves
  A new report warns Obama about our aging nuclear weapons.
  Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo get more press, but among the most urgent national security challenges facing President-elect Obama is what to do about America's stockpile of aging nuclear weapons. No less an authority than Secretary of Defense Robert Gates calls the situation "bleak" and is urging immediate modernization.
  The aging U.S. nuclear arsenal is an urgent worry. A world free of nuclear weapons is a worthy goal, shared by many Presidents, including Ronald Reagan. Until that day arrives, no U.S. President can afford to let our nuclear deterrent erode. [Nuclear weapons] [Double standards]
• Stampede for 'Bush shoe' creates 100 new jobs
  Robert Tait in Istanbul The Guardian, Monday 22 December 2008 Article historyTheir deployment as a makeshift missile robbed President George Bush of his dignity and landed their owner in jail. But the world's most notorious pair of shoes have yielded an unexpected bonanza for a Turkish shoemaker. Ramazan Baydan, owner of the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Company, has been swamped with orders from across the world, after insisting that his company produced the black leather shoes which the Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi threw at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad last Sunday. Baydan has recruited an extra 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271 - more than four times the shoe's normal annual sale - following an outpouring of support for Zaidi's act, which was intended as a protest, but led to his arrest by Iraqi security forces. Orders have come mainly from the US and Britain, and from neighbouring Muslim countries, he said. Around 120,000 pairs have been ordered from Iraq, while a US company has placed a request for 18,000.
  Zaidi has been in custody since the shoe-throwing incident, amid claims that he has been badly beaten. He faces a possible jail sentence for insulting a foreign leader, but has reportedly apologised and requested a pardon from Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki
• Iraqi Journalist Who Threw Shoes at Bush Was Tortured in Jail, His Brother Says
  By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS Published: December 21, 2008 BAGHDAD — The television reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush was burned by a cigarette in the hours after his arrest on Dec. 14 and was beaten so badly by Iraqi security personnel that one of his teeth was knocked out, the reporter’s brother said Sunday after a visit to the jail. The reporter, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29, has been jailed since hurling his shoes at Mr. Bush during a news conference here last week. Mr. Zaidi has not been formally charged, but he faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of the crime of aggression against a foreign leader during an official visit.
• How to Pay for a 21st-Century Military
  Published: December 20, 2008 In recent weeks, this page has called for major changes in America’s armed forces: more ground forces, less reliance on the Reserves, new equipment and training to replace cold-war weapons systems and doctrines.
  Money will have to be found to pay for all of this, and the Pentagon can no longer be handed a blank check, as happened throughout the Bush years
  We do not minimize the danger from ballistic missiles. We agree there should be continued testing and research on more feasible approaches. Since the most likely threat would come from Iran or North Korea, there should be serious discussions with the Russians about a possible joint missile defense program. (We know the system poses no threat to Russia, but it is time to take away the excuse.) [Bizarre] [Missile defense]
• Inauguration Day Crowd Estimate Reduced by Half
  By Mary Beth Sheridan Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 22, 2008; Page A01 Officials are casting doubt on an early projection that 4 million to 5 million people could jam downtown Washington on Inauguration Day, saying it is more likely that the crowd will be about half that size. D.C. authorities said the earlier estimates, provided by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), were based on speculation surrounding the historic nature of the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation's first African American president. After weeks of checking with charter bus companies, airlines and other sources, they're reassessing.
• Now the Real Test for Obama
  By Fareed Zakaria Sunday, December 21, 2008; 6:37 PM The great sociologist Max Weber described the power of charisma as "a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities." Some of Barack Obama's supporters have at times sounded as if they saw "the one" in these terms. There's no doubt that Obama is intensely charismatic and that it provides him with unusual political capital. But very soon -- say on Jan. 20, 2009 -- his powers will start to mutate, and they will derive less from his persona and more from his office. He will shift, in Weber's terminology, from wielding charismatic authority to legal authority.
  How to restore confidence? It's not as easy as it sounds. After all, George W. Bush has pretty consistently projected an air of confidence, one that tends to get people even more worried than they need to be. Perhaps this is because Bush's calm often seems utterly disconnected from the realities around him; he appears thoroughly unaware of the facts on the ground, whether in Iraq, Louisiana or Afghanistan. Like Bush, Roosevelt also projected optimism, but he took great pains to recognize and describe the depth of the difficulties the country faced. In his first fireside chat, Roosevelt explained the basics of banking to the American people and then asked for their help in getting the system working again. "It is your problem no less than mine," he said, enlisting them in the cause at hand.
• The Media Dodge the Shoe, Too
  posted by Leslie Savan on 12/19/2008 @ 8:45pm Once there was a time when a viral video hit didn't have to star the president of the United States ducking a shoe, and in those days it went something like this: "Hamster on a Piano (Eating Popcorn)" is #4 on Time magazine's Top 10 Viral Videos for the year, but if the people could vote, it would surely be pushed down to #5 in the wake of the George Bush shoe-dodging video. Or even lower, if one of the Bush mash-ups--Curly missing W and hitting Larry with a pie gets my vote--joins the original up there in desktop heaven. I won't take up any more pixels analyzing the meaning of the original video, because Bush's loss of face was painfully obvious from the start (Robert Dreyfuss and Robert Scheer have laid it out really well in these pages). But what also jumped out during the first few days of coverage, when cable and even network news were running the vid as if were, well, "Hamster on a Piano," were the frivolous frames the newscasts constructed for every viewing. Though there were scads of storylines to follow on shoe-thrower Muntander al-Zaidi's motivation--from the deaths and destruction during the occupation that he had covered as a journalist to his own kidnapping and release by insurgents--most TV news anchors treated the incident as goofball comedy (that they'd toss around puns was a shoo-in) and/or gushed over Bush's athleticism ("This guy has no physical cowardice at all!" enthused Chris Matthews). I half-expected to see a panel discussion somewhere on "Why do they hit us?," but even that might have been too introspective. [Media]
• Did Bush officials commit war crimes? Maybe, but trials aren't likely
  By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Emboldened by a Democratic win of the White House, civil libertarians and human rights groups want the incoming Obama administration to investigate whether the Bush administration committed war crimes. They don't just want low-level CIA interrogators, either. They want President George W. Bush on down. In the past eight years, administration critics [war crimes]
• The Syrian Strategy
  By DANIELLE PLETKA Published: December 20, 2008 Washington CAN Syria be the cornerstone of a new Middle East? Washington is abuzz with talk of a “strategic realignment” that would split Syria from Iran and upend the status quo in the Middle East. This must be a pleasing prospect to the incoming Obama administration: visionary, and in stark contrast to the Bush administration’s reflexive hostility to Syria. But is it a real possibility, or foreign policy alchemy? On its face, the notion seems crazy. Syria has been nothing but trouble for years — funneling killers into Iraq to oppose coalition forces, assassinating its opponents in Lebanon, arming Hezbollah to attack Israel, and starting a nuclear weapons program with help from North Korea. Nor does Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, seem cut out for the role of a 21st-century Anwar Sadat. Insecure in his own palace, erratic in his statements and crude in his stewardship, Mr. Assad seems more likely to be the victim of a coup than a champion of peace.
  Herein lies the fatal flaw of this transformational vision. It assumes that Syria’s leaders want Syria to become a normal state, when in fact, it is essential to the regime’s survival that it remain a pariah. Mr. Assad and his mafia have made an art of extorting subsistence assistance from the outside world, most recently by holding out prospects for better relations with the West and Israel. But a new Middle East would mean the end of Mr. Assad, which is why he will always turn back to Iran, and why the road to peace in the Middle East will never run through Damascus. Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. [neo con] [US strategy]
• Obama 'voracious' in studying national security issues
  By Helene Cooper Tuesday, December 16, 2008 CHICAGO: He has read "Ghost Wars," a history of the adventure by the Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan over decades and its fruitless attempt to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. He has sought out the counsel of an old Republican realist - Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser - who has long argued against an ideologically driven foreign policy. "Mumbai was a little bit of a wake-up call," one foreign policy adviser to Obama said. During the campaign, Obama had spent far more time talking about Pakistan's relationship with Afghanistan, particularly along the lawless border regions between the two countries, than about Pakistan's long-running fight with India over the disputed region of Kashmir. The Mumbai attacks, for which officials have blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba, a guerrilla group that has been preoccupied with Kashmir, shoved South Asia's other simmering security crisis-in-waiting to the front burner. On the day of the Mumbai attacks, Obama was in Chicago, getting ready to play host to 60 guests at his Hyde Park home for Thanksgiving the next day. He did not cancel his party but ended up spending part of the day in briefings with two CIA officials on the response to Mumbai. He called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice several times to get updates about the crisis and the American response. One Bush administration official with knowledge of the conversations characterized Obama's questions as "gathering information. He wasn't telling her how to run policy." And that Friday, Obama placed a 10:30 p.m. phone call to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India to offer condolences about the loss of life in Mumbai. Obama had already been accused in the Indian news media of giving India short shrift by having called President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan before he connected with Singh as he returned some of the hundreds of congratulatory phone calls from world leaders about his election.
• Shoe-Hurling Iraqi Becomes a Folk Hero
  By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and SHARON OTTERMAN December 16, 2008 BAGHDAD — An Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President Bush and called him a dog became a huge celebrity in the Arab world and beyond on Monday, with many supporters exalting him for what they called a courageous act in the face of American arrogance about the war. Barely 24 hours after the journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, was tackled and arrested for his actions at a Baghdad news conference, the shoe-throwing incident was generating front-page headlines and continuing television news coverage. A thinly veiled glee could be discerned in much of the reporting, especially in the places where anti-American sentiment runs deepest.
• Mumbai Aftermath: U.S. Tilt Toward India Alienates Pakistan and Undermines War Prospects in Afghanistan [Updated]
  China Hand
  The rhetoric of the Global War on Terror appears to have lost its old magic. In the aftermath of the horrendous Mumbai attacks, it seems there were just as many articles saying this wasn’t Mumbai’s 9/11 as there were efforts to raise the bloody flag of America’s catastrophe over the carnage. The most conspicuous example of 9/11 exhaustion is Pakistan. According to the GWOT mythology, Pakistan experienced its galvanizing moment in the suicide bombing of the Islamabad Marriott Hotel in September 2008, and the people and government of Pakistan now stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s democracies to combat extremism. However, after the initial shock of the Mumbai attack wore off in Pakistan—and the international narrative that the attackers were Pakistani coalesced—there was an immediate and emotional rejection of the idea that long-suffering Pakistan should be further destabilized under U.S. and Indian insistence that the miscreants be pursued inside Pakistan’s borders.
  The U.S. Tilt Toward India Washington has overtly tilted toward New Delhi. An eyebrow-raising nuclear giveaway negotiated bilaterally between the U.S. and India allowed India to normalize its relationship with the international nuclear and non-proliferation community even while the Bush administration denied the same option to Pakistan. Even more dangerously, the United States has chosen to allow India to establish itself in Afghanistan—Pakistan’s only regional geopolitical asset and ally, at least when it was controlled by the Taliban—at Pakistan’s expense, thereby coupling a long-term American presence and the fate of the Karzai regime with New Delhi’s continued influence inside Afghanistan. [Nuclear deal]
• Face to face with the Taliban
  Exclusive report from a Taliban veteran's compound in Afghanistan and on the battlefield Ghaith Abdul Ahad in Afghanistan guardian.co.uk, Sunday 14 December 2008 19.44 GMT Article history Qomendan Hemmet, the Taliban commander in Salar district, between his two lieutenants in Wardak, Afghanistan. Photograph: Ghaith Abdul Ahad Qomendan Hemmet sat cross-legged under a window of the mud-walled room. His shoulder, sunk in an old military jacket, rested against the wall and a radio antenna stuck out of his pocket. Next to him sat his deputy, wrapped in a big blanket, silent and sleepy. Around the room sat his men, their faces contorted by years of fighting and poverty, dressed in shalwar kameez and magazine pouches, eyes dark as the kohl lining them. Radios crackled, phones rang non-stop, and more fighters came, drank tea and left with orders. "Salar is the new Falluja," declared Qomendan Hemmet emphatically. "The Americans and the Afghan army control the highway, and five metres on each side. The rest is our territory."
• Experts Urge Obama to Turn Around U.S. Nuclear Policy
  Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008 The Bush administration created a U.S. nuclear "policy vacuum" that must be corrected with a dual-track approach by President-elect Barack Obama, according to an experts' report issued this week (see GSN, Nov. 18). The report, Nuclear Weapons in 21st Century U.S. National Security, urges Obama to "re-establish ... global leadership in nuclear nonproliferation, arms control and disarmament matters," while simultaneously working to "ensure a credible nuclear deterrent for as long as is needed ... without creating any new nuclear weapon capabilities." The suggestion to rely on the existing U.S. arsenal rejects a Bush administration effort to develop a new nuclear warhead that advocates have said would enable deeper cuts to the U.S. stockpile (see GSN, Dec. 5). In addition, the report criticizes the administration in broad strokes. "U.S. nuclear policy and strategy in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 security environment have not been well articulated," says the report, issued jointly by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This policy vacuum regarding our nuclear deterrent must be addressed alongside our efforts to prevent further nuclear proliferation."
  The report experts also urged Obama to maintain the U.S. arsenal. [NPT] [Double standards]
• The neo-Taliban: a year on
  Antonio Giustozzi The success of a reinvigorated Afghan insurgency – albeit qualified by overstretch and internal tensions – guarantees that 2009 will be another tough year of combat, says Antonio Giustozzi. 10 - 12 - 2008 2008 has seen a marked worsening of the security situation in Afghanistan, both in terms of the number of incidents and in terms of the geographical spread of the insurgency. The number of violent incidents has increased by about 50% on previous years (although statistics vary depending on the source); while the government has de facto lost control over two provinces close to the capital Kabul (Wardak and Logar). Antonio Giustozzi is a researcher at the Crisis Research Centre at the LSE, and author of Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Resurgence of the Neo-Taliban in Afghanistan (C Hurst, 2007). In some northern provinces - most notably Kunduz - the insurgency is beginning to represent a serious threat. Indeed, clear signs of insurgent infiltration exist in almost all the northern provinces: only Samangan and Panjshir provinces appear to remain completely free of violent activities. In central Afghanistan, Bamiyan is only marginally affected, with just one district showing sign of the presence of the Taliban. The situation in the other thirty-one provinces of Afghanistan is far more serious; all have insurgents active within their territory. What I described a year ago as the "war difficult to win" has become even more so, and the "unlikely peace" even less imaginable (see "The resurgence of the neo-Taliban", 14 December 2007).
• Venezuela's 'rock star' maestro brings China to its feet
  BEIJING — When he was six or seven years old, Gustavo Dudamel used to set up an imaginary symphony made up of toy figures, put Tchaikovsky on the family stereo, pump up the volume and swing an imaginary baton, conducting with childhood abandon.
  His emergence has put a spotlight on the extraordinary system of children's and youth orchestras in Venezuela that specialize in absorbing at-risk youth, including juvenile delinquents, and turning them into classical musicians.
• U.S. keeps silent as Afghan ally removes war crime evidence
  By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers DASHT-E LEILI, Afghanistan — Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and al Qaida members who'd surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime. [War crimes]
• Russia, Argentina tout world without US domination
  MOSCOW (AP) — The presidents of Russia and Argentina called for a world not dominated by the United States as the two countries signed deals Wednesday to cooperate in energy, agriculture and science and other areas. The agreements dealing with nuclear and conventional power, scientific research and food exports underlined Russia's growing interest in developing relations with Latin America. They come shortly after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a high-profile trip to the region. "The domination of one state, even the biggest, most powerful or most successful one, is unacceptable in any case," Medvedev said. After the signing, Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez expanded on the theme, complaining how "powerful states" had forced economic and security policies onto others. "We see the results of such policy — the whole planet is paying for it," she said. [Decline]
• Obama aims to 'reboot US image' in the Muslim world
  * Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington * The Guardian, Thursday December 11 2008 * Article history Barack Obama cast his presidency as a moment to rebuild America's relations with the Muslim world yesterday, confirming that he would take the oath of office using his middle name Hussein and that he planned to set the tone with a major speech in a Muslim capital early in his presidency. "I think we've got a unique opportunity to reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular," Obama told his hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. Obama said that in choosing to use his middle name he would merely be following custom. "I think the tradition is they use all three names, and I will follow tradition," he told the Tribune. "I'm not trying to make a statement one way or another. I'll do what everybody else does. [Image] [Global insurgency] Islam]
• Downturn Choking Global Commerce
  Chinese Exports Fall Furthest in 7 Years
  By Anthony Faiola and Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, December 11, 2008; Page A01 Sharply lower consumer spending in the United States and other high-income countries is stalling global trade, causing a surprise downturn in exports from China that is dramatically slowing its economy and rippling through other countries that rely on international commerce. With recessions hitting the United States, Europe and Japan at the same time, China yesterday said its November exports took their biggest dive in seven years. Weak holiday spending is taking a particularly hard toll on toymakers: Two-thirds of China's small-toy exporters closed in the first nine months of 2008, according to government statistics. At the same time, tight credit and falling global demand are setting off the first decline in world trade in a quarter century, touching off a wave of job losses in rich and poor countries alike. The drop in trade is both sharper and faster than many analysts had predicted only weeks ago, with freight lines that were sailing full this summer now slashing prices by as much as 90 percent as cargo traffic plummets and unsold goods pile up at ports from Baltimore to Shanghai. The World Bank this week said global trade is set to fall by 2.1 percent in 2009, marking the first decline since 1982. The drop is contributing to a more dire outlook for the world economy, which the World Bank said is close to falling into a global recession.
  The slowdown illustrates how globalization, which fed rapid growth during times of plenty, can quickly turn against nations during times of bust. [Globalisation]
• Was US anti-missile test aimed at Russia and China?
  December 9, 2008, 8:41 A consultant to the head of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces has said that a simulated anti-missile test by the U.S. was not aimed at stopping a North Korean threat as Washington had claimed. Colonel-general Viktor Yesin said last Friday’s test had China and Russia in mind. He said: “To avoid agitating public opinion, U.S. Missile Defense Agency officials say the test was aimed at intercepting North Korean and Iranian rockets. But we missile specialists understand that it was in fact aimed at stopping Russian and Chinese intercontinental missiles.” During the test last Friday an interceptor rocket was launched from California to knock down a missile launched from Alaska. America spends some $US 10 billion a year on an anti-missile network claiming it's necessary to counteract growing threats from ‘rogue nations’ such as North Korea and Iran. [Threat] [Missile defense]December 2, 2008, 1:49
• U.S. tests missile defence shield
  December 6, 2008, 3:19 The U.S. has successfully conducted an anti-missile defence system test in the Pacific. A long-range interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California shot down a missile with a dummy warhead fired from Kodiak, Alaska. U.S. military officials say the system is built to intercept long-range missiles that could be fired by North Korea or Iran. A lot is riding on the success of these tests for the Pentagon, as it has to prove the system's reliability in order to maintain the allotted budget from the government. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the test is seen as a crucial step towards an anti-missile shield that Washington plans to base in Eastern Europe. Friday’s interception was the eighth success out of 13 tests conducted since 1999. The U.S. wants to put a radar facility in the Czech Republic and install ten interceptor missiles in Poland by 2014. Moscow is strongly opposed to the plans, saying that the U.S. shield is a threat to its national security and would undermine the military balance in Europe. [Threat] [Missile defense]
• ‘US concept of uncontested nuclear strike not feasible’
  Russia says the US will not be able to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike without being hit back. It follows Washington's plans to set up a missile defence shield in space. "The US concept of an uncontested first nuclear strike implies the complete neutralisation of any response from Russian strategic nuclear forces, that is, the destruction of all strike missiles," said Nikolay Solovtsov, Commander of the Russian Strategic Rocket Force. "It is believed that the bulk of Russian strategic missile systems would be destroyed in their places of deployment in a pre-emptive counter-force strike of US strategic offensive forces and those Russian missiles that were launched would be eliminated by US missile defense systems," Solovtsov said before adding: "Americans will never manage to implement this scenario because Russian strategic nuclear forces, including the Russian Strategic Rocket Force, will be capable of delivering a strike of retribution given any course of development.” Earlier, Russia completed a successful trial of its newest missile, Bulava, which has a striking distance of 8,000 kilometres. Another test will take place before the end of the year. [US strategy] [Nuclear weapons] [Missile defense]
• '2025' Report: A World of Resource Strife
  Michael Klare | December 2, 2008
  A new report by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) on the emerging strategic landscape, "Global Trends 2025," has attracted worldwide attention because it forecasts a future environment in which the United States wields less power than it does today and must contend with a constellation of other, newly ambitious great powers. "Although the United States is likely to remain the single most important actor," the report notes, "the United States' relative strength — even in the military realm — will decline and U.S. leverage will become more constrained." Of all the many revealing findings in the study, this has been the most widely quoted.
  Far more striking and original, I believe, is the report's emphasis on the role of climate change and resource competition in the world of 2025 and beyond. Until now, these issues have appeared solely on the margins of U.S. strategic and intelligence studies. Now, for the first time, they have moved front and center. [Decline]
• Convoy attacks trigger race to open new Afghan supply lines
  • Race to open new Afghan supply lines • Nato seeks northern route as resurgent Taliban exposes 'achilles heel'Richard Norton-Taylor, Julian Borger and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington The Guardian, Tuesday December 9 2008 Article historyNato countries are scrambling for alternative routes as far afield as Belarus and Ukraine to supply their forces in Afghanistan, which are increasingly vulnerable to a resurgent Taliban, the Guardian has learned. Four serious attacks on US and Nato supplies in Pakistan during the past month, including two in the past three days, have added to the sense of urgency to conclude pacts with former Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan to the north. Nato is negotiating with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to allow supplies for Nato forces, including fuel, to cross borders into Afghanistan from the north. The deal, which officials said was close to being agreed, follows an agreement with Moscow this year allowing Nato supplies to be transported by rail or road through Russia.
• Panel Offers Ways to Strengthen Cyberspace Security
  By John Markoff San Francisco — License plates may be coming to cyberspace. A government and technology industry panel on cyber-security is recommending that the federal government end its reliance on passwords and enforce what the industry describes as “strong authentication.” Such an approach would probably mean that all government computer users will have to hold a device to gain access to a network computer or online service. The commission is also encouraging all non-governmental commercial services use such a device. “We need to move away from passwords,” said Tom Kellermann, vice president of security awareness at Core Security Technologies and a member of the commission that created the report. The report, which offers guidance to the new Obama administration, is a strong indictment of government and private industry efforts to secure cyberspace to date. “The laissez-faire approach to cyber-security has failed,” Mr. Kellermann said. Restricting Internet access is one of a series of recommendation that a group of more than sixty government and business computer security specialists will make in a public presentation of “Securing Cyberspace in the 44th Presidency " Monday [Cyberwar]
• Taliban destroy 100 trucks in biggest raid on Nato supplies bound for Afghanistan
  • Islamist leader warns of increase in armed attacks • $10bn given to Pakistan to fight war on terror 'wasted'Saeed Shah in Islamabad, Richard Norton-Taylor and Simon Tisdall The Guardian, Monday December 8 2008 Article history Pakistani employees inspect the damage at one of the Nato supply depots in Peshawar after the militants’ attack left more than 100 burned-out vehicles. Photograph: Tariq Mahmood/AFP/Getty Images Gunmen mounted the biggest attack yet on Nato supplies going to Afghanistan yesterday, torching more than 100 trucks carrying equipment at a depot in north-west Pakistan, the main route for supplies to troops in land-locked Afghanistan. Security guards at two depots in Peshawar were outnumbered by more than 200 militants at around 3am. About 70 Humvees, which were loaded on some of the trucks, were destroyed. Most of the vehicles were reduced to charred hulks of metal. "They fired rockets, hurled hand grenades and then set ablaze 96 trucks," said a senior police officer in Peshawar, Azeem Khan. The attack came as Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar urged western forces to leave Afghanistan before thousands of their troops were killed in the Islamist group's renewed insurgency.
• Obama's Afghan Dilemma
  By Robert Dreyfuss This article appeared in the December 22, 2008 edition of The Nation. December 3, 2008
  President-elect Barack Obama says that Afghanistan is "the right war." "It's time to heed the call from General [David] McKiernan and others for more troops," Obama said in late October, referring to the US commander in Afghanistan. "That's why I'd send at least two or three additional combat brigades to Afghanistan." He's coupled that with tough talk about hitting Al Qaeda anywhere, including next door in Pakistan. "If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out," Obama said in the second of his three debates with John McCain. "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda."
  Despite such rhetoric, however, nearly two years ago Obama began assembling a cast of experts steeped in the intricacies of South Asian affairs, and they have provided him with a far richer and more sophisticated view of the Afghanistan-Pakistan tangle than emerged in the campaign
• U.S. Plans a Shift to Focus Troops on Kabul Region
  By KIRK SEMPLE Published: December 6, 2008 KABUL, Afghanistan — Most of the additional American troops arriving in Afghanistan early next year will be deployed near the capital, Kabul, American military commanders here say, in a measure of how precarious the war effort has become. It will be the first time that American or coalition forces have been deployed in large numbers on the southern flank of the city, a decision that reflects the rising concerns among military officers, diplomats and government officials about the increasing vulnerability of the capital and the surrounding area.
• Seat at the table: Obama-Biden Transition Project website
  MEMORANDUM From: John Podesta To: All Obama-Biden Transition Project Staff Date: December 4, 2008 Re: "Seat at the Table" Transparency Policy -- EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
  Overview: As an extension of the unprecedented ethics guidelines already in place for the Obama-Biden Transition Project, we take another significant step towards transparency of our efforts for the American people. Every day, we meet with organizations who present ideas for the Transition and the Administration, both orally and in writing. We want to ensure that we give the American people a "seat at the table" and that we receive the benefit of their feedback. Accordingly, any documents from official meetings with outside organizations will be posted on our website for people to review and comment on. In addition to presenting ideas as individuals at www.change.gov, the American people deserve a "seat at the table" as we receive input from organizations and make decisions. In the interest of protecting the personal privacy of individuals, this policy does not apply to personnel matters and hiring recommendations.
• Russia stunned by UN-NATO cooperation deal
  14:57 | 09/ 10/ 2008 BISHKEK, October 9 (RIA Novosti) - Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that Russia was shocked the UN and NATO had secretly signed a cooperation agreement without all UN member states reading the draft. "Before such agreements are signed, their drafts should be submitted to member states for reading. But in this case this did not happen, and the agreement between the secretariats was signed secretly," Sergei Lavrov told journalists after a CIS foreign ministers' meeting in Bishkek. The Russian diplomat said he had asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon while at the UN General Assembly last month why such secrecy was needed but "received no comprehensible explanation." He also said it was surprising that although the document implied cooperation between the two secretariats, its text contained provisions related to immediate prerogatives of member states, including the intention to cooperate in maintaining international security on the basis of the UN Charter and certain international directives. "We asked both secretariats what this could mean and we are waiting for a reply, but we warned the UN leadership in the strictest fashion that things of this kind must be done without keeping secrets from member states and on the basis of powers and authority held by the secretariats," Lavrov said. [UNUS]
• Trying to learn history’s lessons
  By Ilya Kramnik The main lesson of history is that few people learn anything valuable from it. This truth is as ancient as the world, but its age does not make it less relevant. Considering global developments, namely the wars conducted by the United States, one can't help getting the feeling of deja vu. The same events already happened in the past. Only the details were different. The similarity of wars in Iraq and Vietnam, as well as the resemblance of the Soviet and U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan, is evident to everybody. The development of conflicts, especially the war in Afghanistan, repeats past events with uncanny accuracy, and one can't give up the idea that other people's mistakes do not teach anyone anything. The United States is now repeating one of such errors: it is building up its Afghan contingent aiming to boost it to 52,000. Washington hopes that having a larger contingent, coupled with several its allies' building up their forces, will finally lead to a resounding victory over the Taliban and separate guerrilla groups without common command. In a similar situation many years ago the Soviet Union preferred to build up its limited Afghan contingent as one of the main strategies of securing a victory: a large contingent was believed to ensure control over vast territories. It also made it possible to guard convoys with cargoes more effectively. That decision was justified to a certain extent; however, soon it became clear that it was pointless to build up a military contingent when there was no opportunity to deliver a blow to the adversary's supply and training bases. The Pakistani Mujahideen who had been killed were replaced by individual fighters, small groups and large gangs armed with American, Chinese, and Soviet weapons (received from some former allies of the Soviet Union), and the process was repeated.
  The only way to annihilate Mujahideen was to conduct a military operation against their bases in Pakistan, but such escalation of war was impossible. What is happening now? We are seeing practically the same picture.
  The second option, the conflict's expansion, means using force both when addressing the Iranian problem and attempting to steer the Pakistani ally in the "right" direction. These steps will cause a full-scale war in the Middle East, from Iraq to India's borders, with dozens of divisions, hundreds of thousands of men on the ground, dozens of battleships, and thousands of planes and helicopters involved. Such a war will be on a larger scale than any conflict of the 20th century, except for the two world wars. It is impossible to imagine the outcome and consequences of such a conflict, where almost all Asian states will participate. It is hard to believe that the US will choose this way. However, history shows that boosting military production and entering World War II became a way out of the Great Depression. Today's crisis has every chance of surpassing that of 1929. Who can guarantee that the means of countering it will not be equally impressive?
• Bill Clinton Speech in Malaysia Irks Investors
  By DON VAN NATTA Jr. Published: December 5, 2008 Former President Bill Clinton visited Malaysia on Friday to deliver his first paid speech since his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, was selected Monday by President-elect Barack Obama to be secretary of state. Mr. Clinton spoke before nearly 3,000 people in Kuala Lumpur at the invitation of Vinod Sekhar, a Malaysian businessman whose foundation paid Mr. Clinton $200,000, according to several people with knowledge of the fee. The figure is on the lower end of the scale that Mr. Clinton usually commands for his speeches. “You should be proud of this man,” Mr. Clinton told the audience, pointing at Mr. Sekhar, the 40-year-old chief executive of the Petra Group, a privately held rubber technology company. But several angry investors in Britain and Malaysia say they disagree with the former president’s glowing assessment of Mr. Sekhar, whose company has suffered a rough few weeks. [Corruption]
• China Presses U.S. to Stabilize Its Finances
  At Issue Is Whether Chinese Assets and Investments Will Be Safe, Official Says By Lauren Keane Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, December 5, 2008; Page A21 BEIJING, Dec. 4 -- China on Thursday admonished the United States to get its internal financial affairs in order and promised to do its best to pull its own economic weight as the global downturn continues. Speaking at a high-level economic summit between the two powers, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan urged the United States to "take all necessary measures to stabilize its financial markets and economy as soon as possible and ensure the safety of China's assets and investments in the U.S." [Decline] [China rising]
• A Plan For Action: Renewed American Leadership and International Cooperation for the 21st Century
  The Brookings Institution Washington, D.C. Thursday, November 20, 2008
  Introduction: Carlos Pascual Co-Director, Managing Global Insecurity Project Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy The Brookings Institution Moderator: Stephen Stedman Co-Director, Managing Global Insecurity Project Senior Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University Panelists: Madeleine Albright Former U.S. Secretary of State KEMAL DERVIS Administrator United Nations Development Programme Strobe Talbott President The Brookings Institution Thomas Pickering Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Javier Solana High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, European Union Closing Remarks: Bruce Jones Co-Director, Managing Global Insecurity Project Director, Center on International Cooperation New York University
  we need a new style of American leadership, and some of the first things a new President – that President Obama is going to have to do is try to restore American credibility.
  We have seen criminals trafficking nuclear weapons.(sic) [US foreign policy] [Globalisation] [Decline]
• CFR-Brookings report reveals Obama's Mideast strategy
  By Martin Sieff Published: Dec. 3, 2008 at 11:24 AM
  WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Israelis and Palestinians alike should be in no doubt. The new report on the Middle East from the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations is no mere straw in the wind: It spells out in considerable detail what the Obama administration's strategy and priorities for Iran and the Israeli-Arab peace process are going to be. The report covers the entire Middle East. But it is notable for its explicit rejection of and reversal from eight years of deliberate neglect of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations by the outgoing administration of current U.S. President George W. Bush. The report clearly states that Arab-Israeli peacemaking, "after seven years on the back burner of American foreign policy," needs to be a major priority for President-elect Barack Obama when he takes office. There are many reasons to take these recommendations seriously. First, the Brookings Institution has been for more than half a century the most influential and significant think tank to influence Democratic administrations, especially on foreign policy.
• Gloom, but Not Doom
  Published: December 3, 2008 There’s been a fair amount of hand-wringing since the nation’s intelligence community surveyed the world of 2025: America losing dominance; China and India rising; fierce competition for water, food and energy; increased danger that terrorists will get a nuclear weapon.
  That’s all sobering. But the headlines from “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” published by the National Intelligence Council, are not the whole story. [Decline]
• War on bankruptcy
  US defense spending is helping to threaten bankruptcy for the US, Shaun Waterman writes for ISN. By Shaun Waterman in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch No one knows what the final cost will be of the bailout package for the US financial sector agreed this month by the administration and the congress. But the headline figure so far for this one-off rescue package - US$700 billion - is noteworthy, because it is now roughly the amount the US spends on defense every year. In Fiscal Year 2008, which ended on 30 September, the US defense budget was just under US$695 billion - including US$515 billion in the so-called base budget for the Pentagon and military spending by other departments, and a US$180 billion special spending provision for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Militarisation]
• BA explores merger with Qantas
  By Kevin Done in London and Peter Smith in Sydney Published: December 2 2008 13:19 | Last updated: December 3 2008 01:57 British Airways and Qantas are exploring a potential merger in the boldest move yet considered to accelerate the consolidation of the global airline industry. Following an initial approach from Qantas, BA said it was studying a merger with the Australian flag carrier “in a dual-listed company structure”.
• Forty years on, Laos reaps bitter harvest of the secret war
  More than 100 countries will today sign a convention banning the use of cluster bombs. In Laos, the most bombed nation on earth, their lethal legacy is a part of daily life.Ian MacKinnon in Phonsavanh, Laos The Guardian, Wednesday December 3 2008 Article historyThe entrance to Craters restaurant is guarded by a phalanx of bombshells, each as big as a man. Opposite, the Dokkhoune hotel boasts an even finer warhead collection. For tourists who have not cottoned on, the Lao town of Phonsavanh lies at the heart of the most cluster-bombed province of the most bombed country on earth. The haul of unexploded ordnance (UXO) is just a taster of that littering the countryside, or sitting in vast piles around homes and scrapyards. The deadly harvest from the US bombing of this landlocked country 30 years ago in the so-called "secret war" as the real battle raged in next-door Vietnam has become big business. Steel prices that surged on the back of soaring demand from China's go-go economy drove up scrap prices five-fold in eight years in impoverished Laos. It sent subsistence rice farmers, struggling make to ends meet amid spiralling food and fuel prices, scurrying into their fields in search of the new "cash crop". But it comes at a high price. At least 13,000 people have been killed or maimed, either digging in fields contaminated with live bombs or, increasingly, in their quest for lucrative scrap metal. Half the casualties are young boys, most killed by exploding tennis-ball-sized cluster bomblets - christened "bombies" locally - that are everywhere. The scale of the contamination is mind-boggling. Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 bomb-load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973. US bombers dropped more ordnance on Laos in this period than was dropped during the whole of the second world war. Of the 260m "bombies" that rained down, particularly on Xieng Khouang province, 80m failed to explode, leaving a deadly legacy [War crimes]
• History Reloaded: Changing The Past To Suit The Present
  The authors of a new report argue that revisions to the White House Web site reflect a willingness by the Bush administration to whitewash history.
  By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek November 26, 2008 03:50 PM Once upon a time, it may have been that history was written by the winners. But in the information age, history is written by the persistent. Digital information is subject to constant revision, unless care is taken to document its state over time. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Wikipedia, where government agencies, public companies, private organizations, and concerned individuals continually revise the online encyclopedia's entries to suit their respective agendas.
  Such changes have also been found at the White House Web site, where the history of the Iraq war, as described in official press releases, has been revised without public notification. Two of five White House press releases detailing the number and names of countries that publicly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the "Coalition of the Willing," are no longer accessible and three of them were altered without notice, according to "Airbrushing History, American Style," a report issued Wednesday by Kalev H. Leetaru, coordinator of information technology and research at the University of Illinois Cline Center for Democracy, and Scott L. Althaus, associate professor in the departments of political science and communication at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "Modifications to the historical record by the Bush White House began in the opening days of the Iraq invasion and continued through at least the end of 2005," the report states. "Many of these changes involve adding or deleting countries from the coalition list and then presenting the latest change as if it were the original list." [Disinformation]
• Airbrushing History, American Style
  Scott Althaus and Kalev Leetaru University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NOVEMBER 25, 2008 KEY FINDINGS * There are at least five documents taking the form of White House press releases that detail the number and names of countries in the "Coalition of the Willing" that publicly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At one time, all five of these documents were archived on the White House web site. * Today, only three of these five documents can still be accessed in the White House archives. One of the missing lists was removed from the White House web site at some point in late 2004, and the other was removed between late 2005 and early 2006. These two "missing" lists represent earlier and smaller lists of coalition members. * The text of three of these five documents was altered at some point after their initial release, even though in most cases the documents still retained their original release dates and were presented as unaltered originals. These alterations to the public record changed the apparent number of countries making up the coalition, as well as the names of countries in the coalition. Some of these alterations appear to have been made as long as two years after the document's purported release date. * Of the five documents, only two appear to have remained unaltered after the date of their initial release. These are the only two of the five that could be authentic originals. However, we find no evidence that either of these press releases was distributed broadly to the media through normal electronic channels. * Two versions of the coalition list dated March 27, 2003 can be currently accessed on the White House web site. Both claim that there were 49 countries in the coalition, but one lists only 48 by name, omitting Costa Rica. The revision history of this document shows that Costa Rica's name was removed retroactively at some point in late 2004, after the Costa Rican Supreme Court ruled that continued use of its name on the list was a violation of Costa Rica's constitution. * Taken together, these findings suggest a pattern of revision and removal from the public record that spans several years, from 2003 through at least 2005. Instead of issuing a series of revised lists with new dates, or maintaining an updated master list while preserving copies of the old ones, the White House removed original documents, altered them, and replaced them with backdated modifications that only appear to be originals. [Disinformation]
• Sewage Saturates Sadr City as Billions Fail to Reconstruct Iraq
  By Daniel Williams Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Spare tires come in handy in Sadr City when lakes of sewage overflow trenches or bubble up from broken underground pipes. Pedestrians pull them from at-ready stacks to create a foot bridge across the excrement. It’s a routine honed by years of neglect, indifference and, recently, good intentions sucked into a cycle of despair. Almost six years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, sewers in the sprawling Baghdad slum have become the most odorous example of how things don’t get done in Iraq. While the U.S. has been able to pacify once-roiled areas, electricity is still spotty, drinking water is scarce and health care is limited -- even though America has spent billions of dollars on reconstruction and the Iraqi government has taken in hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenue.[see following article]
• Assistance for Iraq
  Transcript: Nightline: Project Iraq April 23, 2003 Wednesday Source: ABC News
  TED KOPPEL (Off Camera) Our guest tonight is ANDREW NATSIOS, administrator of the Agency for International Development, the lead agency that is responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq.
  TED KOPPEL (Off Camera) Well, it's a, I think you'll agree, this is a much bigger project than any that's been talked about. Indeed, I understand that more money is expected to be spent on this than was spent on the entire Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of Europe after World War II. ANDREW NATSIOS No, no. This doesn't even compare remotely with the size of the Marshall Plan. TED KOPPEL (Off Camera) The Marshall Plan was $97 billion. ANDREW NATSIOS This is 1.7 billion. TED KOPPEL (Off Camera) All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion? ANDREW NATSIOS Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it's up and running and there's a new government that's been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They're going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.
• Beyond the Bailout State
  By Steve Fraser December 1, 2008
  This essay originally appeared on TomDispatch. On a December day in 1932, with the country prostrate under the weight of the Great Depression, ex-president Calvin Coolidge--who had presided over the reckless stock market boom of the Jazz Age Twenties (and famously declaimed that "the business of America is business")-- confided to a friend: "We are in a new era to which I do not belong." He punctuated those words, a few weeks later, by dying.
  It might, of course, be possible, as in domestic affairs, to try something new, something that embraces the public redevelopment of America in concert with the global South. This would entail at a minimum a radical break with the "Washington Consensus" of the Clinton years in which the United States insisted that the rest of the world conform to its free market model of economic behavior. It would establish multilateral mechanisms for regulating the flow of investment capital and severe penalties and restrictions on speculation in international markets. Most of all, it would mean lifting the strangulating grip of American military might that now girdles the globe. [Washington consensus]
• The Fall of Triumphalism
  By Michael T. Klare
  This article appeared in the December 15, 2008 edition of The Nation. November 25, 2008 In a remarkable evocation of the strategic environment of 2025, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), a government intelligence service, portrays a world in which the United States wields considerably less power than it does today but faces far greater challenges. The assessment, contained in Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (dni.gov/nic/NIC_home.html), was released November 20 and is intended to be read by President-elect Obama's transition team as well as the general public. "Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor," the council notes, "the United States' relative strength--even in the military realm--will decline and US leverage will become more constrained." [Decline]
• Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.
  24/11/2008 19:31 MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts. Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse." [Decline] [China rising] [Resurgence]
• US experts: Dialogue with Iran needed
  A new report compiled by American experts and addressed to president-elect Barack Obama contains recommendations on the region, including Iran and Hamas, which might raise eyebrows in Jerusalem's security establishment. The next US president will need to pursue a new strategic framework for advancing American interests in the Middle East, says a new report entitled "Restoring the Balance - A Middle East Strategy for the Next President" published Tuesday and compiled over a period of 18 months. [Bilateral]
• Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President
  Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President is the final product of an eighteen month Saban Center at Brookings-Council on Foreign Relations project. This effort involved fifteen of our senior Middle East experts who joined together for the first time to conduct in-depth research, travel to the region, and hold interviews with its leaders in order to develop a series of policy recommendations for President-elect Barack Obama. The teams met on three occasions with a Board of Advisors, a group of former government officials and leaders in the public and private sectors, who critiqued drafts of the papers, but were not asked to endorse the views presented. The Saban Center at Brookings-Council on Foreign Relations project was launched with the aim of presenting non-partisan policy recommendations during the period between Election Day and the inauguration—the transition period—when policy, not politics would be the focus in Washington. Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President addresses the six most pressing Middle East challenges for the incoming president: Iran, Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, proliferation, terrorism, and political and economic development. Each of these issues is addressed in policy planning papers that have been brought together in one book. Based on each policy paper’s conclusions and recommendations, an overall strategy paper was then drafted. What follows are the executive summaries from Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President, as well as full versions of select chapters. Policymakers and members of the media can receive a printed copy of the book by contacting the Saban Center for Middle East Policy or the Council on Foreign Relations. Printed copies are available for purchase at the Brookings Institution Press Bookstore.
• Pathway to Coexistence: A New U.S. Policy toward Iran
  Iran, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Middle East, International Relations Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy Ray Takeyh, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations Brookings Institution Press
  December 2008 — This paper appears as chapter 3 of Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE NEW AMERICAN PRESIDENT, like each of his five predecessors over the past three decades, will be confronted quickly with the need to address profound U.S. concerns about Iran, including its nuclear ambitions, its involvement in terrorism and regional instability, and its repression of its own citizenry. Thanks to events of recent years, Tehran now has acquired the means to influence all of the region’s security dilemmas, and it appears unlikely that any of the Arab world’s crises, from the persistent instability in Iraq and Lebanon to security of the Persian Gulf, can be resolved without Iran’s acquiescence or assistance. The Obama administration may be tempted to take the easy way out by offering merely new rhetoric and modest refinements to the carrot-and stick approach that has failed its five predecessors. This would be a mistake. Today, to deal effectively with a rising Iran, the United States must embark on a far deeper reevaluation of its strategy and launch a comprehensive diplomatic initiative to attempt to engage its most enduring Middle Eastern foe. After a consideration of the range of possible policy options, including regime change, military strikes, containment, and engagement, this chapter outlines a model of engagement that acknowledges Iran’s influence while seeking to constrain and redirect it. [Bilateral]
• New US administration tilts towards hawks
  By Ed Luce in Washington Published: December 1 2008 20:17 | Last updated: December 1 2008 21:00 Barack Obama put the finishing touches on Monday on the senior echelons of his forthcoming administration, with Hillary Clinton, his former rival, topping the roll call of announcements. The flurry of appointments, which included the former first lady as secretary of state and Robert Gates to stay as Pentagon chief, filled in a picture of an administration that will look strong on experience and will tilt towards the hawkish wing of the Democratic party. Describing his team as representing the ?very best of the American example?, Mr Obama, who will take the oath of office next month, said they all shared a similar governing philosophy. ?They share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America?s role as a leader in the world,? he said.
• Subprime Learning: Positive and Negative Lessons of the Japanese Bubble for Americans
  Kaneko Masaru and Andrew DeWit What Japan can teach Americans and the world about financial crises is a question that has been cropping up for some time. References to Japan in fact appear to be increasing, with a recent turn to worries of "becoming Japanese" through a decade or so lost to malaise and marginal growth, perhaps interspersed with bouts of financial panic. Heralding this Japanization is America’s seeming onset of deflation and a liquidity trap in tandem with a virtually zero interest rate policy. These developments have largely eroded American policy options on the financial side. In Japan, this impotent, "pushing on a string" stage of the post-bubble shakeout left the state sector largely moribund, especially after it vainly tried to spend its way out of the crisis. It remains to be seen whether the US, under Obama, will pursue an effective fiscal policy or repeat this year’s tax rebates, the equivalent of simply throwing money in a hole. This commentary reviews the highlights of our current crisis as well as what we can learn from Japan and whether we are, in fact, learning from Japan.
• Pentagon to detail military to bolster security
  Plan would dedicate 20,000 uniformed troops inside U.S. by 2011 By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson updated 11:46 p.m. ET Nov. 30, 2008 The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said. There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
• Kafka has a rival. Today, the Foreign Office lectures us on human rights
  Such an open day beggars belief. At this PR gala you will find no stall for the victims of rapacious British power
  John Pilger
  guardian.co.uk, Monday December 1 2008 00.01 GMT The Guardian, Monday December 1 2008 Article historyToday, a surreal event will take place in London. The Foreign Office is holding an open day "to highlight the importance of human rights in our work as part of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights". There will be various "stalls" and "panel discussions", and foreign secretary David Miliband will present a human rights prize. Is this a spoof? No. The Foreign Office wants to raise our "human rights awareness". Kafka and Heller have many counterfeits. There will be no stall for the Chagos islanders, the 2,000 British citizens expelled from their Indian Ocean homeland, whom Miliband's government has fought to prevent from returning to what is now a US military base and suspected CIA torture centre. The high court has repeatedly restored this fundamental human right to the islanders, the essence of Magna Carta, describing the Foreign Office actions as "outrageous", "repugnant" and "illegal". Yet Miliband's lawyers refused to give up, and were rescued on October 22 by the political judgments of three law lords [human rights] [Double standards]
• A Handpicked Team for a Foreign Policy Shift
  By DAVID E. SANGER Published: November 30, 2008 WASHINGTON — When President-elect Barack Obama introduces his national security team on Monday, it will include two veteran cold warriors and a political rival whose records are all more hawkish than that of the new president who will face them in the White House Situation Room. Yet all three of his choices — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the rival turned secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander, as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates, the current and future defense secretary — have embraced a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena.
• Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
  By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, December 1, 2008; Page A01 The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
• Soldier of Misfortune
  Fighting a Parallel War in Iraq, Private Contractors Are Officially Invisible -- Even in Death
  By Steve Fainaru Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, December 1, 2008; Page C01 Adapted from "Big Boy Rules: America's Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq" (Da Capo Press, 2008) As US Airways Flight 1860 eased into Gate 4 at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, the pilot's voice came over the intercom: "Can I please have your attention? We are carrying with us tonight the remains of a fallen American in Iraq. Please remain seated for the movement of the remains and for the American escorts to deplane." Anyone watching might have thought they were witnessing the somber homecoming of an American hero killed in Iraq. That was technically true: Jonathon Coté had fought in the U.S. Army. He was killed in Iraq. But it was far more complicated than that. The Money and the Life I covered the war in Iraq from the fall of 2004 through 2007, and the story that, to me, captured its essence turned out to be about a mercenary. This was a war with its own original sin: the Bush administration's failure to provide enough troops. To make up the shortfall, the government chose to outsource responsibility for deciding who can kill and die for the United States to for-profit companies that employed tens of thousands of soldiers-for-hire: mercenaries, or private security contractors, as they were known. The mercenaries developed their own language and subculture, and they fought their own secret battles under their own rules -- "Big Boy Rules," as they called their playbook, with more than a hint of condescension, to distinguish it from the constraints of the military's formal code. They weren't counted by our government, alive or dead. [Privatisation]
• Codes for Armageddon: A new president to hold nuclear launch 'football'
  By David Wood November 30, 2008 WASHINGTON - It is a simple transfer of immense power. On Jan. 20, an unobtrusive military officer carrying a small leather-bound metal briefcase will follow President George W. Bush up to Capitol Hill. After the inauguration ceremony, he will accompany President Barack Obama back to the White House. Inside the attaché, known as "the football," are the codes to identify and authenticate a presidential order that could launch nuclear weapons and ignite a global holocaust. Routine to us, perhaps astonishing to much of the world, this peaceful passing of "the football" will propel Obama into a maelstrom. What awaits the new commander in chief is the weighty responsibility of defending the United States - and a nasty brew of nuclear weapons problems that range from the threat of terrorist attacks to potential new regional and superpower arms races. Iran and North Korea are rushing headlong toward building nuclear arsenals. And the main arms reduction treaty with Russia expires next year. [Nuclear weapons]
• One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex
  By DAVID BARSTOW Published: November 29, 2008 In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity. Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest. Few illustrate the submerged complexities of this world better than Barry McCaffrey. [Military-industrial complex] [Corruption]

• US military ripe for a fight with Obama
  By Mark Perry The most intense debate in the aftermath of Barack Obama's election as the next president of the Untied States has been over whether Robert Gates will agree to stay on as defense secretary. But regardless of whether Gates stays on as secretary of defense, the new president faces daunting challenges in dealing with the American military. Not the least of these is that while conservatives go to great lengths to point out that the military is an almost exact reflection of the nation's ethnic and gender diversity, the simple truth remains that the new president will be the commander-in-chief of a military that is primarily southern, rural and conservative - an exact description of the one group of Americans that voted overwhelmingly for McCain. [Pentagon]
• Custodians of Empire
  posted by Tom Engelhardt on 11/25/2008 @ 12:49pm
  The Obama national security "team" -- part of that much-hailed "team of rivals" -- does not yet exist, but it does seem to be heaving into view. And so far, its views seem anything but rivalrous. Mainstream reporters and pundits lovingly refer to them as "centrist," but, in a Democratic context, they are distinctly right of center. The next secretary of state looks to be Hillary Clinton, a hawk on the Middle East. During the campaign, she spoke of our ability to "totally obliterate" Iran, should that country carry out a nuclear strike against Israel. She will evidently be allowed to bring her own (hawkish) subordinates into the State Department with her. Her prospective appointment is now being praised by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Henry Kissinger.
  The Obama transition team's explanation for the remarkably familiar look to its emerging national security line-up, suggested David E. Sanger in a recent front-page think piece in the New York Times, is "that the new administration will have no time for a learning curve. With the country facing a deep recession or worse, global market turmoil, chaos in Pakistan and a worsening war in Afghanistan, 'there's going to be no time for experimentation,' a member of the Obama foreign policy team said." In other words, we need the sort of minds, already imprisoned in Washington's version of "experience," who helped lead us into this mess (long term), to get us out of it. "Experimentation" is obviously for times when it isn't needed. For these custodians of empire, Better a steady hand and the same-old thoughts. No?
• Holy Land retrial ends in sweeping guilty verdicts
  By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer – Tue Nov 25, 10:24 am ET DALLAS – It took 15 years and two trials, but the government has won a terrorism conviction against what had been the nation's largest Muslim charity and five of its leaders for funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. "United States citizens have spoken in this case, and said with a resounding verdict of guilty that we will not tolerate those who choose to finance terrorism," U.S. Attorney Richard Roper said. Holy Land became the government's signature victory in the tough-to-convict pursuit of terrorism financing cases. Lengthy prison sentences may await Holy Land's five convicted leaders, and some could be locked away for life. Counting the collapse of last year's original Holy Land trial, the government has stumbled in terrorism-financing cases. Two other high-profile trials in Chicago and Florida ended without convictions on the major counts.
  Holy Land wasn't accused of violence. Rather, the government said the charity, based in Richardson, Texas, financed schools, hospitals and social welfare programs controlled by Hamas in areas ravaged by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Human rights] [Double standards] [Islam]
• Russia to host BRIC summit in 2009
  Vladimir Radyuhin MOSCOW: Russia will host the first standalone summit of the BRIC nations — Brazil, Russia, India and China — to deal with the global crisis and build a new international financial system. The agreement was reached at talks between the Presidents of Russia and Brazil, Dmitry Medvedev and Luiz Lula da Silva, in Rio De Janeiro on Wednesday. “The Presidents spoke in favour of holding the first BRIC summit in Russia in 2009,” they said in a joint statement quoted by the Interfax news agency. “We are looking forward to playing host to our friends from Brazil, China and India to hold a full-fledged BRIC summit,” said the Russian leader. The leaders of the world’s fastest emerging economies are expected to formally institutionalise BRIC as an international forum. The BRIC Foreign Ministers met for the first time in May in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. [Realignment]
• The battle for Iran
  By John Tirman | November 29, 2008
  THE BATTLE for Iran is on - for Iran policy, that is - and a ferocious contest is in store. The combatants are former policy makers, scholars, and think tanks. They are issuing position papers and holding press conferences. On the front line of the contest are those with carrots and those with sticks, the ages-old choice in foreign affairs. Fortunately, history and circumstances provide a clear preference.
  Among others, this group contends that the fitful and sporadic attempts at discussions with Iran have been too one-sided - demanding, for example, conditions that are the goal of negotiations (suspension of enrichment). These meager approaches are imbedded in hostile rhetoric that needlessly (and erroneously) blames Iran for all the region's ills, such as the violence in Iraq. This is not diplomacy.
  The Obama administration needn't rush its new policy (although Obama should respond to President Ahmadinejad's letter of congratulations soon). The administration must remember that coercion has been an abject failure at every stage of engagement. If the mantra of change has any meaning in Obama's foreign policy, the Persian Gulf is the place to realize it.
• Cyber-attack on Defense Department computers raises concerns
  By Julian E. Barnes November 28, 2008 Reporting from Washington -- Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia -- an incursion that posed unusual concern among commanders and raised potential implications for national security.
  The first indication that the Pentagon was dealing with a computer problem came last week, when officials banned the use of external computer flash drives. At the time, officials did not indicate the extent of the attack or the fact that it may have targeted defense systems or posed national security concerns. The invasive software, known as agent.btz, has circulated among nongovernmental U.S. computers for months. But only recently has it affected the Pentagon's networks. It is not clear whether the version responsible for the cyber-intrusion of classified networks is the same as the one affecting other computer systems. The malware is able to spread to any flash drive plugged into an infected computer. The risk of spreading the malware to other networks prompted the military to ban the drives. Defense officials acknowledged that the worldwide ban on external drives was a drastic move. Flash drives are used constantly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many officers keep them loaded with crucial information on lanyards around their necks. Banning their use made sharing information in the war theaters more difficult and reflected the severity of the intrusion and the threat from agent.btz, a second official said. [Cyberwar]
• War crime tribunals facing crisis as staff quit
  • Karadzic trial among those said to be in jeopardy • Cases extended but contracts are running outAfua Hirsch, legal affairs correspondent guardian.co.uk, Saturday November 29 2008 00.01 GMT The Guardian, Saturday November 29 2008 Article historyTwo tribunals at the centre of efforts to bring war criminals to justice are under threat because of insecurity among staff, the Guardian has learned.
  There are also concerns about the safety of staff from the former Yugoslavia when they return home from The Hague. "This organisation is not seen by all as a humanitarian or nation-building one," said Cottam. "There are many people in the former Yugoslavia who actually perceive the ICTY as a punitive organisation. Those who work here are regarded as the enemy who contributed to arresting their national heroes. The tribunal has a social responsibility to protect these staff." [Double standards]
• ANALYSIS: Obama’s Afghanistan strategy —Najmuddin A Shaikh
  Obama may fall further behind in the campaign to win “hearts and minds” because the security situation will not permit economic development in insurgency-affected areas. Turmoil in Afghanistan may continue for many years to come Despite the conviction that the war against terror had to be won by defeating the Al Qaeda and Taliban forces, the impression in the United States is that there is no coherent strategy in place to achieve this.
  The US will try and ensure that recruitment reflects the ethnic balance in Afghanistan, but if this becomes impossible because of Pashtun reluctance to join, it will be officered largely with Tajiks.In short, a Tajik-officered formidably well trained army with regional connections and loyalties! It is not difficult to see that such a denouement would be detrimental to Pakistan’s interest. It would in fact be the realisation of Pakistan’s worst security fears.
• Asia's Economic Lessons for the U.S.
  The U.S. is mortgaging its future by outsourcing technological inventions in exchange for short-term cash
  By Richard Elkus
  This year's mortgage meltdown suggests the U.S. standard of living is a house of cards. Mortgaging the nation's future is no substitute for a productive globally competitive society that borrows to invest rather than borrows to consume. The current economic crisis should be a wake-up call that the U.S. needs to boost its productive capacity and win in global markets—something we've been neglecting for the last 40 years. The VCR became one of the most successful consumer-electronics products the world had ever seen, but the U.S. gave it away. Although the VCR was first introduced by American-owned Ampex in 1970, it was never manufactured in the U.S. In the mid-1980s no VCRs at all were built in the U.S. Japan's dominance in the market built the foundation of its consumer-electronics industry, contributing significantly to Japan's export surplus and the U.S. trade deficit. As the VCR was the largest user of semiconductor devices of any product of that day, a major part of the U.S. semiconductor industry shifted to Japan as well.
  The U.S. is no longer a significant producer of VCRs, cell phones, cameras, TV sets, displays, CD and DVD players, semiconductors, or most other consumer-electronics products. The technological base that has been lost as a result of exiting these markets is devastating for the U.S. economy and our future. IBM (IBM), once the largest manufacturer of personal computers, sold its PC business to China's Lenovo. The old-line consumer-electronics companies like RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, Sylvania, and Polaroid are gone. Even Bell Labs has been sold. Most of the component parts of America's computers are made in Asia. Today's hottest innovation, high-definition TV, is an Asian phenomenon. America is only the consumer.
  How did these events transpire? America's obsession with short-term profits and cash flow often occurred at the expense of everything else.
  Outsourcing is necessary when the technological and manufacturing investment required of these businesses is too high for any nation, let alone an individual company, to handle on its own. The question is not whether or not to outsource, but are you outsourcing to advance your competitive position in the industry or are you really just on your way to exiting the business altogether? [Offshoring]
• Senior U.S. Official Doubts Conventional Global Strike Value
  By Elaine M. Grossman Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008
  Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON -- A senior U.S. defense official last week cast doubt on the national security value of proposed conventional weapons capable of hitting targets anywhere around the world on short notice (see GSN, Nov. 7). (Nov. 26) - U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition John Young has expressed concerns about Bush administration plans for "prompt global strike" weapons (Defense Department photo). "When you start escalating up that [procurement] ladder and buying long-range delivery systems that cost tens -- approaching a hundred million dollars for one weapon, those are national decisions that need to be taken carefully," said John Young, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Though no official cost estimates have been released for "prompt global strike" arms, their price tags are anticipated to be fairly steep. For example, it could take roughly $600 million for the Army to develop and build 16 Advanced Hypersonic Weapons by 2013 (see GSN, Dec. 21, 2007). The Defense Department is investing nearly $82 million this fiscal year to explore Air Force and Army technologies for weapons that could launch like ballistic missiles and then glide at hypersonic speeds to far-flung endpoints thousands of miles away.
  Top Pentagon officials argue the capability is necessary for hitting fleeting targets like terrorist leaders or rogue nations, without having to resort to long-range nuclear arms. [Military balance]
• New Afghan myths bode ill for western aims
  By Rodric Braithwaite
  Published: October 15 2008 19:25 | Last updated: October 15 2008 19:25 Afghanistan is a place of myths. One myth tells us that the British were defeated in their wars against Afghanistan; or, as an American official remarked recently: “The British screwed up there for two hundred years.”
  In Afghanistan today new myths are building up. They bode ill for current western policy. On a recent visit I spoke to Afghan journalists, former Mujahideen, professionals, people working for the “coalition” – natural supporters for its claims to bring peace and reconstruction. They were contemptuous of President Hamid Karzai, whom they compared to Shah Shujah, the British puppet installed during the first Afghan war. Most preferred Mohammad Najibullah, the last communist president, who attempted to reconcile the nation within an Islamic state, and was butchered by the Taliban in 1996: DVDs of his speeches are being sold on the streets. Things were, they said, better under the Soviets. Kabul was secure, women were employed, the Soviets built factories, roads, schools and hospitals, Russian children played safely in the streets. The Russian soldiers fought bravely on the ground like real warriors, instead of killing women and children from the air. Even the Taliban were not so bad: they were good Muslims, kept order, and respected women in their own way. These myths may not reflect historical reality, but they do measure a deep disillusionment with the “coalition” and its policies
• Russia Has Contacted Obama Aides to Pursue Iran Nuclear Deal
  By Henry Meyer and Ellen Pinchuk Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Russian officials are in contact with the incoming Obama administration, urging it to normalize relations with Iran and reach an agreement over its disputed nuclear program. Russia is hoping that “the new administration understands that there is no alternative to the political process and dialogue at all levels,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Moscow. Asked if Obama would have to normalize ties with Iran to reach a nuclear agreement, he replied: “Yes, absolutely.”
• Russia is far from oil's peak
  By F William Engdahl The good news is that panic scenarios about the world running out of oil any time soon are wrong. The bad news is that the price of oil is going to continue to rise. "Peak Oil" is not our problem. Politics is. Big Oil wants to sustain high oil prices. US Vice President Dick Cheney and friends are all too willing to assist. On a personal note, I've researched questions of petroleum since the first oil shocks of the 1970s. I was intrigued in 2003 with something called the Peak Oil theory. It seemed to explain the   otherwise inexplicable decision by Washington to risk all in a military move on Iraq. Peak Oil advocates, led by former BP geologist Colin Campbell and Texas banker Matt Simmons, argued that the world faced a new crisis, an end to cheap oil, or Absolute Peak Oil, perhaps by 2012, perhaps by 2007. Oil was supposedly on its last drops. They pointed to soaring gasoline and oil prices and to the declines in output of the North Sea, Alaska and other fields as proof they were right. According to Campbell, the fact that no new North Sea-size fields had been discovered since the North Sea in the late 1960s was proof. He reportedly managed to convince the International Energy Agency and the Swedish government. That, however, does not prove him correct. Intellectual fossils? The Peak Oil school rests its theory on conventional Western geology textbooks, most by American or British geologists, which claim oil is a "fossil fuel", a biological residue or detritus of either fossilized dinosaur remains or perhaps algae, hence a product in finite supply.
  An entirely alternative theory of oil formation has existed since the early 1950s in Russia, almost unknown to the West. It claims that the conventional US biological-origins theory is an unscientific absurdity that is unprovable. They point to the fact that Western geologists have repeatedly predicted finite oil over the past century, only then to find more, lots more.
• Behind the Panic: Financial Warfare over Future of Global Bank Power
  By F. William Engdahl, 10 October 2008
  What's clear from the behavior of European financial markets over the past two weeks is that the dramatic stories of financial meltdown and panic are deliberately being used by certain influential factions in and outside the EU to shape the future face of global banking in the wake of the US sub-prime and Asset-Backed Security (ABS) debacle. The most interesting development in recent days has been the unified and strong position of the German Chancellor, Finance Minister, Bundesbank and coalition Government, all opposing an American-style EU Superfund bank bailout. Meanwhile Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pursues his Crony Capitalism to the detriment of the nation and benefit of his cronies in the financial world. It's an explosive cocktail that need not have been.
• Can Obama Take On the Pentagon?
  By Frida Berrigan
  November 25, 2008 This article originally appeared on TomDispatch. Even saddled with a two-front, budget-busting war and a collapsing economy, President Barack Obama may be able to accomplish a lot. With a friendly Congress and a relieved world, he could make short work of some of the most egregious overreaches of the Bush White House--from Guantánamo to those presidential signing statements. For all the rolling up of sleeves and "everything is going to change" exuberance, however, taking on the Pentagon, with its mega-budget and its mega-power, may be the hardest task he faces. The Mega-Pentagon Under President George W. Bush, military spending increased by about 60 percent, and that's not including spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight years ago, as Bush prepared to enter the Oval Office, military spending totaled just over $300 billion. When Obama sets foot in that same office, military spending will total roughly $541 billion, including the Pentagon's basic budget and nuclear warhead work in the Department of Energy. [Militarisation]  
• Protests cause chaos at Bangkok airport
  By Tim Johnston in Bangkok Published: November 26 2008 02:24 | Last updated: November 26 2008 04:04 The confrontation sparked by the takeover of Thailand’s biggest international airport by anti-government protesters was balanced on the brink of a descent into violence on Wednesday as the government considered declaring a state of emergency. Thousands of yellow-shirted members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy took over Bangkok’s main Suvarnabhumi Airport on Tuesday night, forcing the cancellation of dozens of flights, leaving passengers stranded. The protesters have been campaigning for months to bring down the government of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat. Mr Somchai has said he will not resign, and the government is considering declaring a state of emergency, a move that would see responsibility for security handed over to the army. Many carriers, including Singapore Airlines, have cancelled flights to Bangkok citing security concerns.  
• US intelligence 'kept files on Tony Blair's private life', claims ex-US navy operator
  Press Association guardian.co.uk, Monday November 24 2008 19.26 GMT Article historyUS intelligence officials kept a file on former prime minister Tony Blair's "private life", a former US navy communications operator claimed today. David Murfee Faulk, who worked at a listening post in Fort Gordon, Georgia, told ABCNews.com he saw the file on Blair in 2006. But he refused to provide details of what the file, held in an intelligence database called Anchory, contained, other than to say it was a file on his "private life" and included information of a personal nature. Faulk also said he heard "pillow talk" phone calls of Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer, another key US ally, when he worked as a US Army Arab linguist assigned to a US National Security Agency (NSA) facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia, between 2003 and 2007. While not illegal to collect information on foreign leaders, the US and the UK have pledged "not to collect on each other", several former US intelligence officials told ABC. The NSA works closely and shares data with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). "If it is true that we maintained a file on Blair, it would represent a huge breach of the agreement we have with the Brits," one former CIA official said.
• The Election, Economy, War, and Peace
  By Noam Chomsky
  November 25, 2008 The word that immediately rolled off of every tongue after the presidential election was "historic." And rightly so. A Black family in the White House is truly a momentous event.
  There were some surprises. One was that the election was not over after the Democratic convention. By usual indicators, the opposition party should have had a landslide victory during a severe economic crisis, after eight years of disastrous policies on all fronts including the worst record on job growth of any post-war president and a rare decline in median wealth, an incumbent so unpopular that his own party had to disavow him, and a dramatic collapse in US standing in world opinion. The Democrats did win, barely. If the financial crisis had been slightly delayed, they might not have.
  A good question is why the margin of victory for the opposition party was so small, given the circumstances. One possibility is that neither party reflected public opinion at a time when 80% think the country is going in the wrong direction and that the government is run by "a few big interests looking out for themselves," not for the people, and a stunning 94% object that government does not attend to public opinion. As many studies show, both parties are well to the right of the population on many major issues, domestic and international.
  It could be argued that no party speaking for the public would be viable in a society that is business-run to an unusual extent. Evidence for that is substantial. At a very general level, evidence is provided by the predictive success of political economist Thomas Ferguson's "investment theory" of politics, which holds that policies tend to reflect the wishes of the powerful blocs that invest every four years to control the state.
• Russia's new presence in Latin America
  President Medvedev visits Venezuela this week as a Russian nuclear warship leads joint maneuvers. By Sara Miller Llana – Staff writer and Fred Weir – Correspondent from the November 24, 2008 edition Correspondent Fred Weir talks about Russia's former Soviet-era military reach and how it's trying to re-establish that today. Caracas, Venezuela; and Moscow - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit this week with Venezuela's leftist leader Hugo Chávez is the first ever for a Kremlin leader to this oil-rich nation. And the meeting – part of a Latin America tour that includes stops in Brazil and Cuba – is kindling concerns that a resurgent Russia is aiming to revive its cold-war era presence in America's backyard. [Resurgence]
• Debt Man Walking: The US, China, Japan and the Foundations for a New Bretton Woods
  John B. Judis
  Economists know the fatal flaw in our system--but they can't agree how to fix it. For those Americans who are not daily readers of the Financial Times, the past few months have been a crash course in the abstract and obscure instruments and arrangements that have derailed the nation's economy. From mortgage-backed securities to credit default swaps, the financial health of the country has undergone a gory public dissection. And yet, as Barack Obama prepares to take office, one particularly frightening problem has escaped public notice; indeed, it may not even make the agenda of the global summit being held this weekend, dubbed "Bretton Woods II" after the postwar system of currency controls. The international monetary system is in big trouble. [Reserve]
• Retired general looks back on Russia's Afghan war
  Moscow and Washington have made the same mistakes in their conflicts there, says Ruslan Aushev. He offers advice for the U.S. as it enters the eighth year of war. By Megan K. Stack From the Los Angeles Times November 23, 2008 Reporting from Moscow — Retired Lt. Gen. Ruslan Aushev served for five years in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's nearly decade-long battle with mujahedin there. He was wounded and named a Hero of the Soviet Union. Aushev, 54, who later served as president of the Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, is now chief of the Committee of Afghan Veterans. He sat down Thursday in his Moscow office to talk about the lessons learned from the 1980s war in Afghanistan, and what they suggest as the U.S. military enters the eighth year of its own conflict in Central Asia.
  Do you remember a time when it became clear from events on the ground in Afghanistan that it was a losing war for the Soviet Union, that there was nothing to be done but withdraw? What was that time like?
  When we entered Afghanistan in 1979, people gave us a very nice welcome. Exactly a year later, 40% of the population began to hate us. Five years later, 60% of the population hated us. And by the time we were to pull out, 90% hated us. So we understood, finally, that we are fighting the people.
  That was the mistake of our politicians. Military doctrine says you go in, carry out your task and go, and give the power back to civilian authorities.
• A Wartime Presidency, on Two Fronts
  By Anthony H. Cordesman November 23, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor | Transitions Washington
  BARACK OBAMA will take office having campaigned that he would fight the war on terrorism by focusing on winning the war in Afghanistan and eliminating Al Qaeda’s and the Taliban’s sanctuary in Pakistan. He recognizes that these two countries have become the center of Al Qaeda’s activities and of the violent Islamist extremism that challenges the real values of Islam. He also promised he would find the best way to withdraw from Iraq, and to create a new balance of security in the Persian Gulf.
  Moreover, the best case for the Iraq war means coming to grips with the legacy of the worst secretary of defense in American history, Donald Rumsfeld.
• Ringed by Foes, Pakistanis Fear the U.S., Too
  By Jane Perlez Published: November 22, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A redrawn map of South Asia has been making the rounds among Pakistani elites. It shows their country truncated, reduced to an elongated sliver of land with the big bulk of India to the east, and an enlarged Afghanistan to the west. That the map was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American neoconservative circles matters little here. It has fueled a belief among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear arms. “One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan,” said a senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning, who insisted on anonymity as per diplomatic custom. “Some people feel the United States is colluding in this.”
• The lame-duck economy
  By Paul Krugman Friday, November 21, 2008 PRINCETON, New Jersey: Everyone's talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters' minds, both discredited the Republican Party's free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum here in the U.S., these are hopeful times. There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 - namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis
• 2025: the end of US dominance• US intelligence: 'We can no longer call shots alone'
  • European Union will be 'hobbled giant' by 2025 • Triumph of western democracy not certainJulian Borger, diplomatic editor guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 20 2008 19.05 GMT The Guardian, Friday November 21 2008 Article history The country Obama inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to 'call the shots' alone in an increasingly multipolar world. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters 'It's a multi-polar world with much more uncertainty' Link to this audio The United States' leading intelligence organisation has warned that the world is entering an increasingly unstable and unpredictable period in which the advance of western-style democracy is no longer assured, and some states are in danger of being "taken over and run by criminal networks". The global trends review, produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) every four years, represents sobering reading in Barack Obama's intray as he prepares to take office in January. The country he inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to "call the shots" alone, as its power over an increasingly multipolar world begins to wane
  The last time the NIC published its quadrennial glimpse into the future was December 2004. President Bush had just been re-elected and was preparing his triumphal second inauguration that was to mark the high-water mark for neoconservatism. That report matched the mood of the times. It was called Mapping the Global Future, and looked forward as far as 2020 when it projected "continued US dominance, positing that most major powers have forsaken the idea of balancing the US". That confidence is entirely lacking from this far more sober assessment. [Decline]
• Can Obama orchestrate the return of American soft power?
  Foreign policy expert Joseph Nye discusses the changes in U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration
  [Interview] Joseph S. Nye Jr., 71, is a University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and is a well-known foreign policy expert. He served as Deputy to the Undersecretary of State in the Carter administration and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Clinton administration. He is the author of the books Understanding International Conflicts (2006) and Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004), as well as numerous other publications. Nye sat down with The Hankyroeh’s Washington correspondent Ryu Jae-hoon after U.S. presidential election for an interview on his thoughts about the importance of “soft power,” a term he is credited for having coined in the late 1980s, and his expectations for Barack Obama’s presidency. [Softpower]
• Korea, China, Japan to Hold Summit in Dec.
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter President Lee Myung-bak, together with leaders from China and Japan, will convene a summit next month in Fukuoka, Japan. The three leaders will discuss ways of tackling the global economic downturn. It would be the first time that the three Asian countries hold such a summit. They have met alongside Southeast Asian Nations conferences before but this would be the first time for them to meet in a three-way summit. President Lee will meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso at the gathering, scheduled for Dec. 13. They will talk about possibly expanding the Chiang Mai Initiative, an agreement of bilateral currency swaps in the region, as well as other ways to stabilize financial markets. They will also discuss regional security issues including the North Korean denuclearization
• A Residency Dream, Now a Nightmare
  By KIRK SEMPLE Published: November 20, 2008 In 2004, Heathcliffe Bradley was planning to return to his native New Zealand after eight years in the United States when he met Cheryl Losee, a New Jersey native, and his plans flew out the window. He stayed, they married, and then he turned his attention to a lingering problem: Mr. Bradley was an illegal immigrant. Aaron Houston for The New York Times Cheryl Losee reunited with her husband, Heathcliffe Bradley, when he was released earlier this month after spending 36 days in an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, N.J. But what seemed to them a straightforward process to make Mr. Bradley a legal resident soon turned into a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. Last month Mr. Bradley, a construction worker who says he has no criminal record in either the United States or New Zealand, was hauled from his home in handcuffs and put in an immigration detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., and told he was going to be deported. [Human rights]
• Global Trends 2025: The National Intelligence Council's 2025 Project
  From the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council
  "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" is the fourth unclassified report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in recent years that takes a long-term view of the future. It offers a fresh look at how key global trends might develop over the next 15 years to influence world events. Our report is not meant to be an exercise in prediction or crystal ball-gazing. Mindful that there are many possible "futures," we offer a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss. Some of our preliminary assessments are highlighted below: The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China— have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game. The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future. Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with 1.5 billion more people, will put pressure on resources—particularly energy, food, and water—raising the specter of scarcities emerging as demand outstrips supply. The potential for conflict will increase owing partly to political turbulence in parts of the greater Middle East. As with the earlier NIC efforts—such as Mapping The Global Future 2020—the project's primary goal is to provide US policymakers with a view of how world developments could evolve, identifying opportunities and potentially negative developments that might warrant policy action. We also hope this paper stimulates a broader discussion of value to educational and policy institutions at home and abroad. [Decline]
• Daewoo to cultivate Madagascar land for free
  By Song Jung-a and Christian Oliver in Seoul, and Tom Burgis in Johannesburg Published: November 19 2008 17:18 | Last updated: November 19 2008 17:18 Daewoo Logistics of South Korea said it expected to pay nothing to farm maize and palm oil in an area of Madagascar half the size of Belgium, increasing concerns about the largest farmland investment of this kind. The Indian Ocean island will simply gain employment opportunities from Daewoo’s 99-year lease of 1.3m hectares, officials at the company said. They emphasised that the aim of the investment was to boost Seoul’s food security. We want to plant corn there to ensure our food security. Food can be a weapon in this world,” said Hong Jong-wan, a manager at Daewoo. “We can either export the harvests to other countries or ship them back to Korea in case of a food crisis.”
  However, a European diplomat in southern Africa said: “We suspect there will be very limited direct benefits [for Madagascar]. Extractive projects have very little spill-over to a broader industrialisation.”
• Escaping the Dollar's Shadow
  By MARTINE BOULARD Like it or not, the next US president must accept that his great country and its mighty dollar are no longer unchallenged masters of a world economy slowing alarmingly. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there will be 20 million more people unemployed worldwide by the end of 2009 than in 2007. The summit of both industrialized and emerging nations, the G20 on November 15, did not challenge a market system that has patently failed. Change will be slow because China, America's main banker, has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo - for the moment at least [Decline] [China rising] [Reserve]
• Understanding the Beijing Consensus
  The decades of the Washington Consensus and its imposition of a liberal model of world trade and financial good behaviour are over. What will replace it and which states will be the power-brokers?
  By Alain Gresh
  Some revealing news items appeared this year even before the financial hurricane. There are now more internet users in China than in the US, and the US accounts for only 25% of global traffic on the web, compared with more than 50% a decade ago; attempts to revive the Doha round of international trade talks failed, mostly because India and China refused to sacrifice their impoverished farmers to free trade; in the war with Georgia, Russia defied the US’s half-hearted protestations and defended its national interests in the Caucasus. These diverse facts indicate dramatic changes in international relations — chiefly the end of the absolute domination that the West has enjoyed since the first half of the 19th century. [Decline]
• EXCLUSIVE: Intel panel foresees lesser U.S. role
  World in 2025 expected to be 'multipolar' and dangerous Nicholas Kralev The top U.S. intelligence panel this week is expected to issue a snapshot of the world in 2025, in a report that predicts fading American economic and military dominance and warns of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The predictions come from the National Intelligence Council (NIC), part of Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell's office. The NIC report, a draft copy of which is titled "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," is slated for release as early as Thursday. The report also predicts "a unified Korea" is likely by then, and that China will be the world's second-largest economy and a major military power. [Decline]
• New York Times 4 July 2009
  An imagined front page of a transformed NY Times, and a transformed America
• Official G-20 website
  
• US again misfires on Iranian arms in Iraq
  By Gareth Porter
  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JK18Ak03.html - Last April, top George W Bush administration officials, desperate to exploit any possible crack in the close relationship between Iraq's Nuri al-Maliki government and Iran, launched a new round of charges that Iran had stepped up covert arms assistance to Shi'ite militias. Secretary of Defense Robert M Gates suggested there was "some sense of an increased level of [Iranian] supply of weapons and support to these groups". And Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung was told by military officials that the "plentiful, high quality weaponry" the militias were then using in Basra was "recently manufactured in Iran". But a US military task force had been passing on data to the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI) command that told a very different story.
  The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2% of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of 1% of the total weapons found in Shi'ite militia caches during that period. [Disinformation]
• Afghanistan abyss awaits Obama
  By M K Bhadrakumar
  The struggle for influencing Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda has begun in right earnest. The maneuvering by influential establishment figures - including Congressional voices, Obama advisors and even military officials - who are projecting incumbent Robert Gates as secretary of defense in the incoming administration highlights the pressures working on the president-elect. The focus is on the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in promoting the basic George W Bush policies promoted since the 1990s by nationalist and neo-conservative Republicans. These are policies animated by long-term ambitions for US economic and military hegemony. A Gates appointment will signal that Obama may turn his back on his campaign pledge to withdraw US troops from Iraq in 16 months. Gates, of course, disfavors any set timeline or timetable for a withdrawal plan.
  Least of all, it may become necessary at some point to spell out a timeline on the troop withdrawal. Every challenge also offers an opportunity. The upcoming presidential election in Afghanistan offers an opportunity for Obama to resist the temptation to impose another US proxy in Kabul like President Hamid Karzai. Let Afghan people genuinely choose their leader. Let a new president emerge out of the complex deal-making that is part of the Afghan way of life. It is a difficult decision for Obama to take, but it needs to be taken. It will signify the beginning of a US "withdrawal". [US foreign policy]
• There Will Be Blood Democracy and Its Death Squads
  To civilian liberals of a hawkish bent, General Petraeus projects the reassuring image of the thinking person’s general. It’s kind of hard to wrap one’s head around the idea that operating death squads might be an integral—and perhaps the vital—component of the vaunted Petraeus doctrine of counterinsurgency. Or that death squads will probably continue to play a central role in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan under an Obama administration.
  The traditional preoccupation of the military—killing people and blowing stuff up—is recast as “targeted kinetic operations and using force judiciously”. It makes military operations sound more like policework than fighting, and only one of six equally important ingredients in the appetizing and nutritionally well-balanced COIN salad. [Spin]
• Pakistan The Next US Target
  Written by www.daily.pk Monday, 17 November 2008 01:51 Bill Kristol, a Fox Television commentator and arch American neoconservative revealed recently what many had long suspected was US thinking about the current international situation. Kristol recounts that in a 90-minute, mostly off-the-record meeting with a small group of journalists in early July, President Bush “conveyed the following impression, that he thought the next president's biggest challenge would not be Iraq, which he thinks he'll leave in pretty good shape, and would not be Afghanistan, which is manageable by itself… It’s Pakistan.” We have “a sort of friendly government that sort of cooperates and sort of doesn’t. It's really a complicated and difficult situation.” Right on cue, presidential candidate Barack Obama took the baton from Bush in his speech on July 15, in which he argued that more focus and resource were required on both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Kristol revelation on the surface is staggering yet not a surprise to those who have long suspected that the US presence in Afghanistan constitutes a Trojan horse for a more insidious plan the US has for Pakistan.
• The Coming Catastrophe: the American War in Afghanistan and Pakistan
  Richard Tanter
  By virtually every measure, the war in Afghanistan is getting much worse for both the western coalition and for the Afghani civilian population. The strategic benefits are minimal to non-existent, the risks of a widening war alarming, and the moral and humanitarian consequences appalling. Strategic confusion, institutional inertia and self-interest provide most of the answer as to why the US remains in Afghanistan. Australia’s commitment shares the same strategic confusion, mixed with a diffuse paternalistic enthusiasm not too far distant from a nineteenth century imperialist ideal of civilising the natives. The US, and its allies, will leave, without any definable or honourable victory. The Afghans will stay. If the current logic of expansion of the war engulfs Pakistan, withdrawal and defeat will take place eventually, but later, and after an infinitely more catastrophic and dangerous war. Could a new US administration transform these outcomes? [UNUS]
• Japan-India Joint Security Declaration: Towards an Asia-wide Security Architecture?
  Sourabh Gupta As Japan and India move toward bilateral security cooperation, it is not surprising that Prime Ministers Aso Taro and Manmohan Singh have vigorously denied that the arrangements were aimed at counterbalancing China. But will Beijing read it in this way? [China confrontation]
• China fears India-Japan space alliance
  By Peter J Brown India and Japan's agreement in October to expand cooperation between the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in the field of disaster management, has the raised the ire of a China fearful that the US is masterminding a powerful space alliance between its allies in the region. All of Asia wants to see improved regional disaster management capabilities, but the growing ties between ISRO and JAXA come just as India and Japan are devising an action plan to advance security cooperation. "China is concerned about the general effort of the US during the Bush Administration to form a Japanese-Indian alliance to contain China," said Dr Gregory Kulacki, senior analyst and China project manager at the Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists. [China confrontation]
• US military: From kinetic to comprehensive
  By Carl Baker and Brad Glosserman http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JK13Df03.html A quiet transformation is underway in the United States military that has significant implications for US foreign policy, and relations with Asia in particular. Strategists increasingly recognize that military options must go beyond combat operations. Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained the new approach in a July speech: "The overall posture and thinking of the United States armed forces has shifted - away from solely focusing on direct American military action, and towards new capabilities to shape the security environment in ways that obviate the need for military intervention in the future." He is even ready to put the Pentagon's money where his mouth is: He advocates shifting resources to other agencies to ensure a more balanced approach to so-called stability operations. [US foreign policy] [Militarisation]
• Documents linking Iran to nuclear weapons push may have been fabricated
  by Gareth Porter (source: Raw Story)
  Tuesday, November 11, 2008 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated. The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents. The new evidence of possible fraud has increased pressure within the IAEA secretariat to distance the agency from the laptop documents, according to a Vienna-based diplomatic source close to the IAEA, who spoke to RAW STORY on condition of anonymity. [Disinformation]
• Franklin Delano Obama?
  By Paul Krugman
  Published: November 10, 2008 Suddenly, everything old is New Deal again. Reagan is out; F.D.R. is in. Still, how much guidance does the Roosevelt era really offer for today’s world? The answer is, a lot. But Barack Obama should learn from F.D.R.’s failures as well as from his achievements: the truth is that the New Deal wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run. And the reason for F.D.R.’s limited short-run success, which almost undid his whole program, was the fact that his economic policies were too cautious.
  What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs.
• Japan-India Joint Declaration on Security
  Cooperation: Groping Towards an Asia-wide Security Architecture”
  By Sourabh Gupta
  November 5th, 2008 Sourabh Gupta, Senior Research Associate at Samuels International Associates, Inc., writes, “it remains to be seen whether an economically-anemic Japan-India bilateral partnership with a top-heavy security component (albeit, at present, more in intent than content) will trump either country’s economically more densely-linked but strategically more circumspect relationship with China.” [India Japan] [China confrontation]
• 21st-Century Bretton Woods? Global financial summit hinges on China playing a role once taken by U.S.
  Sebastian Mallaby
  As international pressures build to create a new international financial and currency order in the wake of the most severe global crisis since the 1930s, interest—and fantasy—center not only on the critical role of the United States but equally on China. China is now in the spotlight not only because of its position as a rising economic power, not only because of its vast financial currency reserves in the range of $2 trillion, but also because of currency strategies that align the yen to the dollar to keep its value low in order to maximize exports. Here Sebastian Mallaby looks back and forward to envisage a new financial order that would place China at the center. Japan Focus
  Both sides of the Bretton Woods achievement seem alluring today, yet both may be chimerical. The conference rebuilt the economic order by creating a system of fixed exchange rates. The aim was to prevent a return to the competitive devaluations best illustrated by the "butter wars." In 1930 New Zealand secured a cost advantage for its butter exports by devaluing its money; Denmark, its main butter rival, responded with its own devaluation in 1931; the two nations proceeded to chase each other down with progressively more drastic devaluations. [Decline] [China rising] [Protectionism]
• Terrorists try to infiltrate UK's top labs
  The security services have intercepted up to 100 suspects posing as postgraduate students who aim to acquire weapons material and expertise
  * Mark Townsend, defence correspondent * guardian.co.uk, Sunday November 2 2008 00.01 GMT * The Observer, Sunday November 2 2008 * Article history
  A Foreign Office spokesman said 'efforts' on scrutiny of foreign postgraduate students would continue with only a few of the 20,000 applications rejected for security reasons. In the US, draft legislation advocates banning all non-Americans from laboratories which possess potentially dangerous bacteria and viruses, a measure the UK government believes is too draconian. [Globalisation]
• Welcome to My World, Barack
  Interviews by HELENE COOPER and SCOTT L. MALCOMSON Published: November 13, 2008 On Jan. 20, Barack Obama will inherit a world very different from the one his predecessor found in January 2001. Over the past eight years, the Bush administration has faced great challenges and nurtured grand ambitions; it has tried hard to remake the world. Condoleezza Rice has been a central player in that effort since becoming the candidate Bush’s chief foreign-policy adviser in 2000, so we arranged to interview her at the State Department late last month. The interview turned into a wide-ranging discussion of where this government has taken the United States and what sort of world it will leave for the next president. The editors have culled the highlights of her remarks in the text that follows. We also spoke with other administration foreign-policy makers — Christopher Hill and Daniel Fried of the State Department and Gen. James L. Jones, former supreme allied commander, Europe — whose remarks supplement and illuminate those of Rice
  DON’T PREACH TO THE CHINESE. I think if we do find a solution to the problem of Darfur, it will be because we worked with China. If we find a solution to the problem of Iran, it will be because we worked well with China. Similarly, if we close this deal with North Korea, it will be because of our efforts with China. So I think China has emerged as a country with whom we have to work globally on security challenges. There are increasing signs that we can do that. China suffers at times to an extent, I think, from a caricature of what it is. It’s a really complex society. I don’t think it should be defined by one dimension, its economics, or security, or human rights. We need to look at all the issues. CHRISTOPHER HILL
• Iceland, Mired in Debt, Blames Britain for Woes
  By SARAH LYALL Published: November 1, 2008 LONDON — No one disputes that Iceland’s economic troubles are largely the country’s own fault. But there may be more to the story, at least in the view of Iceland’s government, its citizens and even some outsiders. As grave as their situation already was, they say, Britain — their old friend, NATO ally and trading partner — made it immeasurably worse.
  Icelanders have posted photos on a Web site protesting a decision by the British leader, Gordon Brown, to use antiterrorism laws to freeze the British assets of a failing Icelandic bank. The troubles between the countries began three weeks ago when Britain took the extraordinary step of using its 2001 antiterrorism laws to freeze the British assets of a failing Icelandic bank. That appeared to brand Iceland a terrorist state.
• Obama's Asia agenda
  NOV 16 - Barack Obama is unlikely to change US policy towards Asia dramatically, although he looks set to place a stronger emphasis on security in Pakistan and Afghanistan. What will the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the US mean for Asia? The world's most populous continent, where Mr Obama lived briefly as a child, did not loom large in his campaign. He secured the White House for himself by promising a new beginning for an America that had grown tired of George W Bush's inept leadership for the past eight years. This makes many in Asia wonder if "change" will also be coming in the region's relationship with the US. Of course, it is the prerogative of the new president-and especially one from a different party-to change his predecessor's course. But Mr Obama's overall approach to Asia is unlikely to feature a completely new direction in US policy.
• Crisis forces open door to the party
  By Daniel Dombey in Washington Published: November 14 2008 02:00 | Last updated: November 14 2008 02:00 As the world's leaders gather for this weekend's summit on the financial crisis, one message stands out: power is shifting east. The European Union, in the person of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, pushed George W. Bush, the US president, to hold the summit - but also recognised that in today's circumstances, the old guest-list would be inadequate. That is why the meeting is of the G20 group of industrialised and emerging economies including China and India - not the seven that have formed a close-knit club for more than three decades. In addition, just a few months after the Georgia-Russia war that brought a chill to relations between Washington and Moscow, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, will be welcomed to the White House. More generally, the summit will reflect one of the world's new realities: the growing clout of countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and South Korea as holders of hundreds of billions of dollars in US debt. [China rise] [Decline]
• World Bourses Surge on Obama's Election
  Bourses in Asia rallied Wednesday when Barack Obama was elected as the new U.S. president. Stock markets surged on expectations that with a new leadership in the U.S., policies to stabilize financial markets and stimulate the economy will be promptly implemented.
• Election Unleashes a Flood of Hope Worldwide
  Ed Wray/Associated Press By ALAN COWELL Published: November 5, 2008 PARIS — From the front lines of Iraq to more genteel spots like Harry’s Bar in Paris, the election of Barack Obama unlocked a floodgate of hope that a new American leader will redeem promises of change, rewrite the political script and, perhaps as important as anything else, provide a kind of leadership that will erase the bitterness of the Bush years. Whether it was because of Mr. Obama’s youth, his race, his message or his manner, some European leaders abandoned diplomatic niceties to compete for extravagance in their praise, while others outside the United States — fascinated by an election that had been scrutinized around the globe — reached for their most telling comparisons.
• Around the World, Praise for Obama
  By Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, November 5, 2008; 1:51 PM LONDON, Nov. 5 -- Through tears and whoops of joy, in celebrations that spilled onto streets on distant continents, people around the globe called Barack Obama's election a victory for the world and a renewal of America's ability to inspire. From Paris to New Delhi to the beaches of Brazil, revelers said Obama's election made them feel more connected to America, and that America, after years of strained relations, seemed suddenly more connected to the world.
• Obama Is Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls
  By ADAM NAGOURNEY Published: November 5, 2008 Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive. The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago. Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a former prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the presidency. To the very end, Mr. McCain’s campaign was eclipsed by an opponent who was nothing short of a phenomenon, drawing huge crowds epitomized by the tens of thousands of people who turned out to hear Mr. Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago. Mr. McCain also fought the headwinds of a relentlessly hostile political environment, weighted down with the baggage left to him by President Bush and an economic collapse that took place in the middle of the general election campaign. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” said Mr. Obama, standing before a huge wooden lectern with a row of American flags at his back, casting his eyes to a crowd that stretched far into the Chicago night.
• Only in America (part IV)
  Anthony Barnett
  04 - 11 - 08 In the fourth part of his exchange with KA Dilday, Anthony Barnett argues that Obama sees the US as part of the world, not apart from it.
  Here is the main point: America is special, yes. It is different. It is unique in its own way. But so too in their ways are all other countries. America is especially special because it is so powerful. But this is not inspiring - look what it has done with its power, from Vietnam to Iraq. Yes, Obama represents another America from Bush. The immense importance of his campaign is that it means one cannot say about George W Bush's Guantanamo-USA, "That's it folks - there is no other America". [Exceptionalism]
• Rejoin the World
  By Nicholas D. Kristof
  Published: November 1, 2008 An unscientific poll of 109 professional historians this year found that 61 percent rated President Bush as the worst president in American history.
  A couple of others judged him second-worst, after James Buchanan, whose incompetence set the stage for the Civil War. More than 98 percent of the historians in the poll, conducted through the History News Network, viewed Mr. Bush’s presidency as a failure.
  Mr. Bush’s presidency imploded not because of any personal corruption or venality, but largely because he wrenched the United States out of the international community. His cowboy diplomacy “defriended” the United States. He turned a superpower into a rogue country. Instead of isolating North Korea and Iran, he isolated us — and undermined his own ability to achieve his aims.
  A new approach means a vigorous effort for peace in the Middle East. We also need to commit to negotiating with odious countries. President Clinton’s engagement policy toward North Korea was a constant headache, for Kim Jong Il was brutally repressive and tried to start a secret uranium program. But North Korea didn’t produce nuclear materials for a single weapon during Mr. Clinton’s years in office; under Mr. Bush, it has produced enough for a half dozen.
  So here’s the score: Clinton diplomacy, 0 weapons; Bush fulmination, 6 weapons. [US NK policy] [HEU]
• FACTBOX: McCain, Obama policies on major Asia issues
  Sun Nov 2, 2008 (Reuters) - Following are major policies toward Asia of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain, as published on campaign Web sites, party platforms and speeches:
• Why America Needs an Economic Strategy
  The Harvard Business School competitiveness guru offers his prescription for long-term prosperity By Michael E. Porter
  This Issue November 10, 2008 With the U.S. election just days away, it has never been more important to consider what the next President must do to keep America competitive. In this time of crisis, Washington has focused on the immediate and the short term. Lost are the more basic questions we really need to worry about: What is the fundamental competitive position of the U.S. in the global economy? And what must we do to remain strong when other nations are making rapid progress? The stark truth is that the U.S. has no long-term economic strategy—no coherent set of policies to ensure competitiveness over the long haul. Strategy embodies clear priorities, based on understanding the strengths we need to preserve and the weaknesses that threaten our prosperity the most. Strategy addresses what to do, but also what not to do. In dealing with a crisis, experience teaches us that steps to address the immediate problem must support a long-term strategy. Yet it is far from clear that we are taking the steps most important to America's long-term economic prosperity.
• Islamic Banking: Steady in Shaky Times
  Principles Based on Religious Law Insulate Industry From Worst of Financial Crisis
  By Faiza Saleh Ambah Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, October 31, 2008; Page A16 JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- As big Western financial institutions have teetered one after the other in the crisis of recent weeks, another financial sector is gaining new confidence: Islamic banking. Proponents of the ancient practice, which looks to sharia law for guidance and bans interest and trading in debt, have been promoting Islamic finance as a cure for the global financial meltdown. [Finance] [Islam]

• World Tires of Rule by Dollar
  America's "Economic Egotism"
  By Paul Craig Roberts
  What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? The answer does not lie in improved fundamentals for the US economy or better prospects for the dollar to retain its reserve currency role. The rise in the dollar’s exchange value is due to two factors. One factor is the traditional flight to the reserve currency that results from panic. People are simply doing what they have always done. Pam Martens predicted correctly that panic demand for US Treasury bills would boost the US dollar. The other factor is the unwinding of the carry trade. The carry trade originated in extremely low Japanese interest rates. Investors and speculators borrowed Japanese yen at an interest rate of one-half of one percent, converted the yen to other currencies, and purchased debt instruments from other countries that pay much higher interest rates. In effect, they were getting practically free funds from Japan to lend to others paying higher interest. [Reserve] [Decline] [China rise]
• Lufthansa to take control of BMI
  By Kevin Done in London and Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt Published: October 29 2008 10:13 | Last updated: October 29 2008 22:35 Lufthansa is taking majority control of BMI British Midland, which will give it the second largest share of take-off and landing slots at London Heathrow airport, behind British Airways. The deal marks an important step in the restructuring of the European airline industry with the German carrier gaining a leading role at Heathrow, the biggest airport in Europe measured by passenger numbers and the key European gateway for passengers from North America. The takeover challenges British Airways at its Heathrow global hub. It could trigger an alliance or merger of operations between the German carrier and Virgin Atlantic, the London-based long-haul rival to BA, controlled by Sir Richard Branson. It will consolidate the role of Star, the global airline alliance led by Lufthansa and United Airlines of the US, as the main challenger to Oneworld, the alliance led by BA and American Airlines, at Heathrow. [Tourism]
• Still No. 1
  By Robert Kagan Thursday, October 30, 2008; Page A23 Is Barack Obama the candidate of American decline? To hear some of his supporters among the foreign policy punditry, you'd think he was. Francis Fukuyama says he supports Obama because he believes Obama would be better at "managing" American decline than John McCain. Fareed Zakaria writes weekly encomiums to Obama's "realism," by which he means Obama's acquiescence to the "post-American world." Obama, it should be said, has done little to deserve the praise of these declinists. His view of America's future, at least as expressed in this campaign, has been appropriately optimistic, which is why he is doing well in the polls. If he sounded anything like Zakaria and Fukuyama say he does, he'd be out of business by now. One hopes that whoever wins next week will quickly dismiss all this faddish declinism [Decline]
• The US Empire will Survive Bush
  Two Parties, One Imperial Mission
  October 29, 2008 By Arno Mayer The United States may emerge from the Iraq fiasco almost unscathed. Though momentarily disconcerted, the American empire will continue on its way, under bipartisan direction and mega-corporate pressure, and with evangelical blessings.It is a defining characteristic of mature imperial states that they can afford costly blunders, paid for not by the elites but the lower orders. Predictions of the American empire's imminent decline are exaggerated: without a real military rival, it will continue for some time as the world's sole hyperpower. But though they endure, overextended empires suffer injuries to their power and prestige [Imperialism] [ Decline]
• Gates: nuclear weapons and deterrence in the 21st century
  U.S. Department of Defense Tuesday, October 28, 2008
  Simply put, we cannot predict the future and so even as we strive to live up to our noblest goals as Carnegie did, we must deal with the messy realities of the world in which we live. One of those realities is the existence of nuclear weapons, the subject I want to discuss today. [Nuclear weapons] [Double standards]
• U.S. has plundered world wealth with dollar: China paper
  Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:14am EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States has plundered global wealth by exploiting the dollar's dominance, and the world urgently needs other currencies to take its place, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Friday. The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said that Asian and European countries should banish the U.S. dollar from their direct trade relations for a start, relying only on their own currencies. [Reserve]
• Why Asia stays calm in the storm
  By Kishore Mahbubani Published: October 28 2008 19:37 | Last updated: October 28 2008 19:37 What does the Asian silence on the financial crisis really mean? Does it mean silent gloating, with a heavy dose of schadenfreude? Does it signify terror that Asian economies will also be blown away? Or does it reflect a sober calculation that calm and steady heads are required in such a storm? Amazingly, in the thousands of words spun in the incestuous western discourse on this crisis, little attention has been paid to Asian views, even though the calm and steady responses of China, India and Japan, the three anchor Asian economies, provide hope that there may be some pillars of stability in the swirling storm.
• Gates Gives Rationale for Expanded Deterrence
  By THOM SHANKER Published: October 28, 2008 WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Tuesday that the United States would hold "fully accountable" any country or group that helped terrorists to acquire or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
  The statement was the Bush administration’s most expansive yet in trying to articulate a vision of deterrence for the post-Sept. 11 world. It went beyond the cold war notion that a president could respond with overwhelming force against a country that directly attacked the United States or its allies with unconventional weapons. [Nuclear weapons] [Double standards]
• Russia's Medvedev shrugs off U.S. sanctions on arms
  Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:18 GMT By Denis Dyomkin MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. sanctions on Russia's state arms exporter are short-sighted and will not have a significant impact on its sales, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday. The U.S. State Department last week imposed sanctions on firms in China and Russia for alleged sales of sensitive technology that could help Iran, North Korea and Syria develop weapons of mass destruction or missile systems. One of the firms on the list was Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport. "I consider such sanctions as short-sighted," Medvedev told a government commission overseeing Russia's arms trade. "It is unscrupulous competition, simply an attempt to close doors for the supplier and the main thing is that for us this decision can hardly be felt," he added [Arms sales] [Double standards] [Sanctions]
• Wrecked Iraq
  By Michael Schwartz Even before the spectacular presidential election campaign became a national obsession, and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression crowded out other news, coverage of the Iraq War had dwindled to next to nothing. National newspapers had long since discontinued their daily feasts of multiple - usually front page - reports on the country, replacing them with meager meals of mostly summary stories buried inside the paper. On broadcast and cable TV channels, where violence in Iraq had once been the nightly lead, whole news cycles went by without a mention of the war.
  In a sense, the (often exaggerated) decline in violence in that country has allowed foreign reporters to move around enough to report on the real conditions facing Iraqis, and so should have provided US readers with a far fuller picture of the devastation George Bush's war wrought. In reality, though, since there are far fewer foreign reporters moving around a quieter Iraq, far less news is coming out of that wrecked land.
  As a consequence, what was once the most advanced Middle Eastern society - economically, socially, and technologically - has become an economic basket case, rivaling the most desperate countries in the world. Only the (as yet unfulfilled) promise of oil riches, which probably cannot be effectively accessed or used until US forces withdraw from the country, provides a glimmer of hope that Iraq will someday lift itself out of the abyss into which the US invasion pushed it.
• US worldviews worlds apart
  By Jim Lobe
  WASHINGTON - While the ongoing financial crisis has almost entirely displaced foreign policy and even the Iraq War as the main concern of voters in the United States, differences in approach to the world beyond US borders between Republican candidate Senator John McCain and his Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama remain substantial. [US foreign policy] [Dissension]
• U.S. Penalizes Companies for Selling Arms Technology
  By HELENE COOPER Published: October 24, 2008 WASHINGTON — The United States has slapped a handful of foreign companies with punitive sanctions for sales of technologies that it says could help Iran, Syria and North Korea to develop nuclear weapons. The State Department in the Federal Register said 13 “foreign persons” — from Russia, China and Venezuela, among other countries — violated the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act. [Sanctions] [Arms sales]
• Asia and the Meltdown of American Finance
  R. Taggart Murphy     The boardrooms and finance ministries of Seoul, Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are today filled with a fair degree of schadenfreude at America’s troubles.  Schadenfreude is not a very nice emotion; Theodor Adorno once defined it as “unanticipated delight in the sufferings of another."  But asking Asia’s business and governing elites to repress shivers of pleasure at the meltdown of the American financial system is probably demanding more than flesh and blood can bear.  The spectacle of the politicians, pundits and academics of Washington and Chicago thrashing about in attempts to justify the vast amounts of money being shoveled at their, um, cronies on Wall Street is just a little too rich.  Particularly since much of the money will have to be borrowed from the very people who a decade ago at the time of the so-called Asian Financial Crisis were being pooh-poohed for their “crony capitalism,” “opaque” banking systems, “incestuous” government-business relations, not to mention their supposed absence of transparent financial reporting, good corporate governance, or accountable executives and regulators.
• Both Candidates Embrace Diplomacy
  Tone Struck by McCain and Obama Contrasts With That of Recent Political Campaigns By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, October 26, 2008; Page A16 Over the past decade, Sen. John McCain has dismissed France and Germany as unreliable allies, suggested that the United States would attack North Korea even if South Korea objected, and called for "rogue-state rollback" to help "overthrow odious regimes that rule these states."
• U.S. policies may have contributed to Iran revolution, study says
  By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 17, 2008 BEIRUT -- A new report based on previously classified documents suggests that the Nixon and Ford administrations created conditions that helped destabilize Iran in the late 1970s and contributed to the country's Islamic Revolution. A trove of transcripts, memos and other correspondence show sharp differences over rising oil prices developing between the Republican administrations and Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi in the mid-1970s, says a report to be published today in the fall issue of Middle East Journal, an academic journal published by the Washington-based Middle East Institute, a think tank.
• Burma/Myanmar After Nargis: Time to Normalise Aid Relations
  Asia Report N°161 20 October 2008 The massive devastation caused by cyclone Nargis has prompted a period of unprecedented cooperation between the government and international humanitarian agencies to deliver emergency aid to the survivors. The international community should seize this opportunity to reverse longstanding, counterproductive aid policies by providing substantial resources for recovery and rehabilitation of the affected areas and, gradually, expanding and deepening its engagement in support of sustainable human development countrywide. This is essential for humanitarian reasons alone, but also presents the best available opportunity for the international community to promote positive change in Myanmar. [Aid weapon] [Media]
• Globalisation and the new nationalism collide
  By Philip Stephens Published: October 23 2008 19:15 | Last updated: October 23 2008 19:15 We are saved. Amid the rubble of the world’s financial markets, we can catch sight of the foundations of a new international order. The big lesson of the crisis has been learnt: we cannot escape our mutual dependence. Global markets require multilateral rules.
  Why am I so upbeat? Well, only this week that great internationalist President George W. Bush announced he was summoning world leaders to Washington to "advance common understanding" of the causes of the crash. In the words of the White House, these leaders will frame "a common set of principles for the reform of the regulatory and institutional regimes for the world’s financial sectors". That is a bit of a mouthful, I know. But, hey, multilateralism is a long word too.
• Rare Shark Makes Waves in Dubai
  Luxury Resort Puts Threatened Fish on Display in Lobby Tank, Setting Off Protests and Campaign for Its Release By Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, October 24, 2008; Page A13 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- One day this summer, a fisherman spotted a 14-foot shark off this high-rise Persian Gulf boomtown. The polka dots on the creature's back showed she was a whale shark, an internationally protected species. The fisherman, according to local news reports and the United Arab Emirates' Environment Ministry, was working on consignment, charged by a new $1.5 billion, ocean-themed resort here with finding exotic fish for its aquariums and water park. Today, the shark is the star attraction in a tank in the black marble lobby of the newly opened Atlantis, a project of a state-owned development company and a foreign developer best known for founding the Sun City resort in apartheid-era South Africa. Guests pay $7,500 a night to stay in Atlantis's Poseidon and Neptune suites, where a glass wall affords a private view of the whale shark and the smaller fish in her tank. Diners in a seafood restaurant run by a Michelin three-star chef enjoy the same view.
  Developers are generally the unchallenged heroes of Dubai's $1 trillion-plus building boom. There was no outcry last year, for example, when authorities deported hundreds of predominantly South Asian construction workers -- legally entitled to neither a minimum wage nor the right to strike -- for staging a protest for better pay.
  But the fate of the freckled gray shark has caught public attention, suggesting that even Dubai's culture of developer-driven excess has its limits. [Double standards] [Human rights]
• Winning Hearts and Minds: U.S. Psychological Warfare Operations in Singapore, 1955–1961*
  s. r . joey long
  President Dwight Eisenhower made psychological warfare an integral part of his administration's national security policy.1 Upon entering office, the president and his policymakers established a bureaucratic structure and advanced a lucid set of principles to facilitate the conduct of information campaigns overseas. With congressional consent, the administration created the United States Information Agency (USIA) in August 1953, tasking it to align public opinion abroad with U.S. security objectives.2 The Eisenhower government also directed appropriate agencies to run specific psychological warfare operations. Whereas the State Department supervised the exchange-of-persons program, the USIA oversaw radio, library, film, and publication operations overseas. Although the USIA's principal role was to conduct government-attributed "white" operations, it was also detailed to conduct "gray" activities, attributing information originally disseminated by the U.S. government to third parties. "Black" propaganda, which involved assigning the source of misinformation to an adversary to undermine the latter's standing, was delegated to the Central Intelligence Agency.3 An operations coordinating board (OCB) coordinated the activities, instituting an elaborate set of directions that left no State Department, USIA, or CIA official unclear as to how U.S. information operations would be performed. Such coordination ensured that psy-war operations would be smoothly run, and that ends and means matched.4 [Psychowar] [Propaganda] [Softpower]
• Rethinking Manifest Destiny Expansionism
  michel gobat
  Aims McGuinness . Path of Empire: Panama and the California Gold Rush . : Cornell University Press , 2008 . xiii + 249 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. . The concept of Manifest Destiny is increasingly invoked by scholars and public commentators to explain the recent surge in U.S. "liberal imperialism"—that is, U.S. efforts to impose free markets and democracy on subjugated nations. Nevertheless, most historians do not link the so-called age of Manifest Destiny (circa 1820s–1850s) with overseas liberal imperialism or even with the history of U.S. foreign relations. Instead, they situate Manifest Destiny expansion within the confines of U.S. "domestic" history, and thus equate it with the conquest of the American West. The few historians who do acknowledge the overseas dimension of Manifest Destiny expansion usually associate it with the efforts of the U.S. South to extend the anti-liberal institution of slavery into the Caribbean basin. That Manifest Destiny expansionism in fact had stronger ties with overseas liberal imperialism than commonly perceived is neatly revealed by Aims McGuinness's path-breaking study of Panama during the California Gold Rush. McGuinness is able to illuminate these obscure ties not only because Path of Empire explores Manifest Destiny expansionism from a fresh, non-U.S. standpoint but because it focuses on a little-studied case of antebellum expansion that entailed the creation of a U.S. commercial empire. [Imperialism]
• Where no bad idea ever dies
  By Reuven Pedatzur Tags: Nuclear weapons "With the Bush administration, no bad idea ever dies." This was how the New York Times aptly described the "policy paper" that was initialed last month by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. The document, which was titled "National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century," is a direct continuation of the president's reckless nuclear policy. It analyzes the anticipated threats in the years to come, evaluates the safety of America's nuclear weapons stockpiles, and reaches the conclusion that there is no alternative but to develop a new generation of nuclear warheads. This is yet another aggressive step taken by George W. Bush, who apparently does not miss an opportunity to breathe new life into the dark winds of the cold war. Under his leadership, when it comes to matters related to nuclear policy, the United States is behaving like the schoolyard bully. It is as if Washington is convinced that all the others must come to terms with its unbridled behavior.
  After all, it is clear that the American plan to arm itself with a new generation of nuclear weapons will undermine international cooperation in stemming the spread of nuclear arms. It will likely result in less pressure on Iran and North Korea to renounce their nuclear programs.
  In addition, the threats cited in the Bush administration's position paper do not justify the development of new nuclear weapons. The document divides the threats into three categories. There are "states of concern," like North Korea and Iran; "violent extremists and non-state actors," namely organizations "that are motivated by goals and values at odds with our values"; and "major existing nuclear states outside of NATO," a reference to Russia and China. Obviously, the current American arsenal provides a sufficient deterrent against the likes of Iran and North Korea. In addition, there is no logic or justification for considering use of nuclear weapons when dealing with terrorist organizations. That leaves Russia and China. Instead of emphasizing the need to calm security tensions with these two countries, the document provides details of Chinese and Russian modernization of their armed forces, while making clear that they represent a threat to the U.S. In the Bush White House, the cold war has not died. [Imperialism] [China confrontation] [Nuclear weapons]
• Asian Americans Feeling the Power
  Ethnic Groups See Opportunity to Affect Outcome of Presidential Race in Va.
  By Pamela Constable Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 21, 2008; Page B01 Asian American voters in Virginia, highly organized and registered in record numbers, have become energized by the presidential race and the role they see themselves playing in this tightly contested state. "This is the first time I've seen multiethnic coalitions forming around an election. The margin is razor-thin in Virginia, so we could still be a swing vote," said Nguyen Dinh Thang, executive director of SOS Boat People, a nonprofit group in Falls Church and a center for get-out-the-vote efforts, including phone banks and weekend canvassing. "Asian Americans realize this election is their opportunity to really get noticed." According to leaders of the large, affluent communities of Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans and Indian Americans in Northern Virginia, sentiment among those groups favors Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), although Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) enjoys a core of loyal support among older Asian refugees who suffered at the hands of communist regimes. [Diaspora]
• Unreliable Sources
  By Mark Ames
  October 22, 2008 You may not have noticed it, but a couple of weeks ago, the New York Times slipped in a story that completely contradicted a narrative that it had been building up for two straight months, one that was leading America into another war--a so-called "New Cold War." The article exposed the awful authoritarian reality of Georgia's so-called democracy, painting a dark picture of President Mikhail Saakashvili's rule that repudiated the fairy tale that the Times and everyone else in the major media had been pushing ever since war broke out in South Ossetia in early August. That fairy tale went like this: Russia (evil) invaded Georgia (good) for no reason whatsoever except that Georgia was free. Putin hates freedom, and Saakashvili is the "democratically elected leader" of a "small, democratic country." Up until now, the war between Russia and Georgia was framed as a simple tale of David versus Goliath. In fact, it is far more complex than this, morally and historically. Yes, it was only a month ago that we were stupid and crazy enough to think that the United States had no choice but to launch a costly new cold war against a nuclear power, even though we still haven't closed the deal on a couple of mini-wars against Division-III opponents, and we were on the verge of bankruptcy. Ah, to be blissfully naïve--and bloodthirsty at the same time--wasn't it wonderful? [Media]
• The Philippines: America's other war on terrorism
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers Since the Sept. 11 attacks more than seven years ago, President Bush has waged a worldwide assault on Islamic militants from Iraq to Afghanistan to the Horn of Africa that's relied overwhelmingly on U.S. military force, harsh treatment of detainees and tough talk. Winning "hearts and minds," at least until recently, has been an afterthought. On a Southeast Asian front that's vital yet largely unfamiliar to most Americans, some 500 U.S. Special Operations Forces and their Filipino counterparts have been fighting a different, unconventional — and seemingly successful — war against Islamic terrorist groups with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaida. [Separatism] [Double standards]
• US, Russia, NATO and the Future of Afghanistan: Taliban Resurgence and the Geopolitics of Oil
  M K Bhadrakumar
  An impression is being created that there is a "rift" between the United States and Britain regarding the reconciliation track involving the Taliban. The plain truth is that the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are in this murky game together.
  The US-British-Saudi plan to accommodate the Taliban in the power structure in Kabul creates a dilemma for Indian policymakers. To do an about-turn and begin to distinguish "good" Taliban is ridiculous. It will be seen as kow-towing to the US and will be difficult to rationalize. The antipathy towards the Taliban runs deep in the Indian mindset, since no matter the actual character of the Taliban's "Islamism", a threat perception gained ground in Indian opinion regarding "Islamic terror" from Afghanistan. The Indian establishment unwittingly contributed to this by harping on the ubiquitous "foreign hand" in terrorist activities in India. A rollback of the thesis will take time. Furthermore, India views that the Taliban as an instrument of policy for Pakistani intelligence and as detrimental to Indian regional security interests. All
• Koran reference delays LittleBigPlanet
  By JASON HILL - SMH | Tuesday, 21 October 2008 DELAYED: Sony's much anticipated LittleBigPlanet game has been delayed after one of its music tracks was found to contain a quotation from the Koran. One of the biggest game releases of the year has been delayed because music lyrics in a background song could have caused offense to Muslim players. Sony is now hastily recalling all copies of LittleBigPlanet that had been sent to retailers and manufacturing new discs of the PlayStation 3 blockbuster with the offending music track removed. "During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Koran," Sony said in a statement. [Islam]
• The Great Iceland Meltdown
  By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: October 18, 2008 London Times Topics: Iceland Who knew? Who knew that Iceland was just a hedge fund with glaciers? Who knew? If you’re looking for a single example of how the globalization of finance helped get us into this mess and how it will help get us out, you need look no further than British newspapers last week and their front-page articles about the number of British citizens, municipalities and universities — including Cambridge — that are in a tizzy today because they had savings parked in Icelandic banks, through online banking services like Icesave.co.uk.
  And therein lies the central truth of globalization today: We’re all connected and nobody is in charge.
  It will be a world in which America will not be able to scratch its ear, let alone roll over in bed, without thinking about the impact on other countries and economies. And it will be a world in which multilateral diplomacy and regulation will no longer be a choice. It will be a reality and a necessity. We are all partners now. [Decline] [Globalisation]
• Showdown at Doha: The Secret Oil Deal That Helped Sink the Shah of Iran
  Author: Andrew Scott Cooper
  What led to the calamitous drop in Iran’s oil revenues in January 1977? Politics, religion, culture, and economics have been identified as factors contributing to the collapse of Iran’s monarchy in 1979. But until now scholars have been unable to access documents that could shed light on the inner workings of the relationship between senior US officials and the Shah of Iran, whom Henry Kissinger lauded as “that rarest of leaders, an unconditional ally, and one whose understanding of the world enhanced our own.”1 The declassification of the papers of Brent Scowcroft, who worked in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, marks a significant milestone in our understanding of the origins of the Iranian Revolution. They reveal that in 1976 the US and Saudi Arabia colluded to force down oil prices, inadvertently triggering a financial crisis that destabilized Iran’s economy and weakened the Shah’s hold on power. Publication Details Volume:Volume 62 Number:Number 4 Issue:Winter Year:2008
• Hedge fund manager slams ‘idiot’ bankers
  By James Mackintosh in London Published: October 17 2008 21:13 | Last updated: October 17 2008 21:13 A hedge fund manager who made what is thought to be one of the biggest percentage profits of all time bowed out of the business on Friday with a fierce attack on the “idiots” running big banks who were willing to take the other side of his bets.
  Saying he was “in this game for the money”, Mr Lahde went on to mock those who traded with him. “The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking.” “These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. “All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.”
• Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payout
  Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.
  None of the banks the Guardian contacted wished to comment on the record about their pay plans. But behind the scenes, one source said: "For a normal person the salaries are very high and the bonuses seem even higher. But in this world you get a top bonus for top performance, a medium bonus for mediocre performance and a much smaller bonus if you don't do so well."None of the banks the Guardian contacted wished to comment on the record about their pay plans. But behind the scenes, one source said: "For a normal person the salaries are very high and the bonuses seem even higher. But in this world you get a top bonus for top performance, a medium bonus for mediocre performance and a much smaller bonus if you don't do so well." (sic)
• The Stunning Collapse of Iceland
  Even after the government's seizure of top banks, Iceland may face bankruptcy, with dire effects for huge Icelandic investments overseas By Kerry Capell Home to just 304,000 people, tiny Iceland is emerging as the biggest casualty of the global financial crisis. On Oct. 9, the government took control of the country's largest bank, Kaupthing (KAUP.ST), and halted trading on the Reykjavik stock exchange until Oct. 13. Authorities also used sweeping new emergency powers to hive off most of the domestic assets of the country's second-largest bank, Landsbanki, into a separate entity to be called "New Landsbanki" that will be fully owned by the government. In a stunning turn of events over the past week, the vast majority of Iceland's once-proud banking sector has been nationalized. The government has taken control of Kaupthing, Landsbanki, and the No. 3 bank, Glitnir. Kaupthing also was forced to take an emergency $702 million loan from Sweden to prop up its Swedish arm, while the Norwegian Banks' Guarantee Fund offered $819 million in liquidity support to the local unit of Glitnir. Now some believe that Iceland, which has transformed itself from one of Europe's poorest countries to one of its wealthiest in the space of a generation, could face bankruptcy (BusinessWeek.com, 10/8/08). In a televised address to the nation, Prime Minister Geir Haarde conceded: "There is a very real danger, fellow citizens, that the Icelandic economy in the worst case could be sucked into the whirlpool, and the result could be national bankruptcy."
  Help from Russia? To avert financial disaster, the country—which is a founding member of NATO—may turn to Russia for help. The Russian government has said it would consider lending Iceland $5.5 billion. "We have not received the kind of support that we were requesting from our friends," Haarde said. "So in a situation like that one has to look for new friends." (Haarde was adamant, though, that any deal did not extend to military cooperation, refuting the suggestion that Russia might be given access to an airbase vacated by the U.S. Air Force in 2006.) [Decline]
• Man in the News: John Maynard Keynes
  By Ed Crooks
  Published: October 17 2008 19:43 | Last updated: October 17 2008 19:43 “We have reached a critical point,” John Maynard Keynes wrote in March 1933. “We can ... see clearly the gulf to which our present path is leading.” If governments did not take action, “we must expect the progressive breakdown of the existing structure of contract and instruments of indebtedness, accompanied by the utter discredit of orthodox leadership in finance and government, with what ultimate outcome we cannot predict.” As the world reels from a 1929-style stock market plunge and a 1931-style banking crisis, his words are a fair assessment of the dangers we face once again. Keynes, whose life’s mission was to save capitalism from itself, is more relevant than at any time since his death in 1946.
• 20bn barrel oil discovery puts Cuba in the big league• Self-reliance beckons for communist state
  • Estimate means reserves are on a par with USRory Carroll, Latin America correspondent The Guardian, Saturday October 18 2008 Article history A worker walks at an oil rig in Havana, Cuba. Photograph: Enrique De La Osa/Reuters Friends and foes have called Cuba many things - a progressive beacon, a quixotic underdog, an oppressive tyranny - but no one has called it lucky, until now . Mother nature, it emerged this week, appears to have blessed the island with enough oil reserves to vault it into the ranks of energy powers. The government announced there may be more than 20bn barrels of recoverable oil in offshore fields in Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico, more than twice the previous estimate. If confirmed, it puts Cuba's reserves on par with those of the US and into the world's top 20. Drilling is expected to start next year by Cuba's state oil company Cubapetroleo, or Cupet.
• Iran falling into the “net” of a “worldwide policy”: On the U.S. Foreign Policy Doctrine and Its Dangers
  by William R. Polk interviewed by Ali Fathollah-Nejad (source: Informed Comment) Monday, October 13, 2008 Ali Fathollah-Nejad interviews veteran Middle East Expert William R.Polk on United States foreign policy toward Iran: A former high-ranking member in the foreign and security policy staff of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and most recently the foreign policy advisor of Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s presidential bid, Dr. William Polk talks to Ali Fathollah-Nejad on the neoconservative momentum in his country’s foreign policy, on terrorism, and on the danger of war on Iran. A.F.: How can the U.S. foreign policy objective vis-à-vis Iran be summarized? What is the common denominator? W.P.: I think it is a complicated issue really, because it is partly an aspect of American attitude toward Israel, partly an aspect of the attitude toward Iraq, but is also much influenced by the general drift which was set up the neoconservative movement dealing with America’s role in the world. I go into that in some detail in the last book I did called Violent Politics (HarperCollins Publishers, 2007) and also the book I did with former Senator George McGovern on the Iraq issue entitled Out of Iraq - A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now (Simon & Schuster, 2006). This reformulation of American policy started over a decade ago with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz asserting an American role as the world’s policeman. They sought to reconstitute various other countries according to, as they described it, American national interest. They proposed that America assume the right to attack other nations and to change their regimes. This was not a theoretical or academic exercise, but it was encapsulated in the U.S. national security policy. The basic idea is that America assumes the right to intervene anywhere in the world, not only where it regards enemies operating against it, but where the United States feels that other countries or movements might rival its power. This policy was effected by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he created an organization called the »Special Operations Command« which was set up in Florida with 53,000 men and last year’s budget (FY 2008) of 8 billion dollars, Rumsfeld asserted the right to station American special forces – »special op’s forces« as they are called – anywhere in the world to assassinate enemies, overthrow governments, and otherwise engage in acts of war and not be under the supervision of Congress or the designated American representatives abroad – the ambassadors – but to operate solely under the discretion of the Secretary of Defense. And this operation actually exists today. I have described it as being a “loose cannon” for American policy. [US foreign policy] [Neocon] [Imperialism]
• Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes
  Tue Aug 12, 2008 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said. The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005. More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said. During that time corporate sales in the United States totaled $2.5 trillion, according to Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who requested the GAO study. [Corruption]
• A mad scramble over Afghanistan
  By M K Bhadrakumar
  An impression is being created that there is a "rift" between the United States and Britain regarding the reconciliation track involving the Taliban. The plain truth is that the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are in this murky game together. The essence of the game is to make the "war on terror" in Afghanistan more efficient and cost-effective. Surely, it is official American thinking that there has to be some form of reconciliation with the Taliban. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted as much last week. He said, "There has to be ultimately, and I'll underscore ultimately, reconciliation as part of the political outcome to this [war]. That's ultimately the exit strategy for all of us." (Emphasis added) When you repeat a word thrice in five seconds, it does register. Gates suggested he wasn't hinting at all about an "exit strategy". Indeed, at an informal meeting of the defense ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) last week in Budapest, Hungary, the alliance visualized a long haul in Afghanistan. Taliban reconciliation Any reconciliation with the Taliban would essentially be in the nature of picking up the threads from October 2001 when the US invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime. Taliban leader Mullah Omar promised at the 11th hour in those fateful days from his hideout in Kandahar via Pakistani intermediaries - that, yes, he would verifiably sequester his movement from al-Qaeda and ask Osama bin Laden to leave Afghan soil, provided the US acceded to his longstanding request to accord recognition to his regime in Kabul rather than engage it selectively. The US administration ignored the cleric's offer and instead pressed ahead with the plan to launch a "war on terror".
• Monetary Stalinism in Washington
  By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene
  Amongst the worst tragedies of Soviet collectivization was the Ukraine famine of 1932-33, which took six million lives as Joseph Stalin practiced forced appropriation of crops and imposed very low prices for agricultural products in favor of industrialization. Interference with the pricing mechanism and Stalinism in the form of very low prices for agricultural products also caused famines in India in 1965 and in China in 1969, with a human death toll well into the millions. Monetary policy as practiced by the US Federal Reserve for the past decade is but a form of financial Stalinism, forcing ridiculously low or negative real interest rates, with catastrophic results that are now plaguing the world
• US controls bird flu vaccines over bioweapon fears
  By ROBIN McDOWELL , Associated Press Writer, Medicine & Health / Other In this June 5, 2008 file photo, chickens look out of their pen in a downtown neighborhood in Jakarta, Indonesia. When Indonesia's health minister stopped sending bird flu viruses to a research laboratory in the U.S. out of fear Washington could use them to make biological weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laughed and called it "the nuttiest thing" he\'d ever heard. Yet buried deep inside an 86-page supplement to U.S. export regulations is a single sentence barring U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu for the same reason. (AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyiah, File) Click here to enlarge image (AP) -- When Indonesia's health minister stopped sending bird flu viruses to a research laboratory in the U.S. for fear Washington could use them to make biological weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laughed and called it "the nuttiest thing" he'd ever heard. Yet deep inside an 86-page supplement to United States export regulations is a single sentence that bars U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu and dozens of other viruses to five countries designated "state sponsors of terrorism." The reason: Fear that they will be used for biological warfare. Under this little-known policy, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan may not get the vaccines unless they apply for special export licenses, which would be given or refused according to the discretion and timing of the U.S. Three of those nations - Iran, Cuba and Sudan - also are subject to a ban on all human pandemic influenza vaccines as part of a general U.S. embargo. The regulations, which cover vaccines for everything from Dengue fever to the Ebola virus, have raised concern within the medical and scientific communities. Although they were quietly put in place more than a decade ago, they could now be more relevant because of recent concerns about bird flu. Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they were not even aware of the policies until contacted by The Associated Press last month and privately expressed alarm. They make "no scientific sense," said Peter Palese, chairman of the microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He said the bird flu vaccine, for example, can be used to contain outbreaks in poultry before they mutate to a form spread more easily between people. "The more vaccines out there, the better," he said. "It's a matter of protecting ourselves, really, so the bird flu virus doesn't take hold in these countries and spread." [Sanctions]
• The Russo-Georgia War and the Challenge to American Global Dominance
  Herbert P. Bix
  The five-day Russo-Georgian War in the Caucasus brought into sharp focus many conflicts rooted in the region’s history and in aggressive US-NATO policies since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Notable among these were the military encirclement of Russia and attempts to control energy resources in areas long dominated by the Soviet Union. The net effect was to hasten a dangerous new era of rivalry between the world’s two most powerful nuclear weapons states, one which will be shaped hereafter by the current global recession and the changes it is bringing about in the economic practices of all states.
  President Bill Clinton’s resort to force in Kosovo in 1999 was crucial in precipitating this situation. At that moment the US moved to thrust aside international law and the primacy of the Security Council. Clinton justified war as a matter of establishing a more humane international order, and every civilian death that resulted from it became “unintentional collateral damage,” morally justifiable because the end was noble. By substituting a quasi-legal, moral right of humanitarian intervention for the long-established principles of national sovereignty and respect for territorial integrity, US-NATO aggression against Serbia prepared the ground for the Bush administration’s unilateral military interventions. [Imperialism]
• The Depression: A Long-Term View
  by Immanuel Wallerstein
  Commentary No. 243, Oct. 15, 2008 The depression has started. Journalists are still coyly enquiring of economists whether or not we may be entering a mere recession. Don't believe it for a minute. We are already at the beginning of a full-blown worldwide depression with extensive unemployment almost everywhere. It may take the form of a classic nominal deflation, with all its negative consequences for ordinary people. Or it might take the form, a bit less likely, of a runaway inflation, which is simply another way in which values deflate, and which is even worse for ordinary people. Of course everyone is asking what has triggered this depression. Is it the derivatives, which Warren Buffett called "financial weapons of mass destruction"? Or is it the subprime mortgages? Or is it oil speculators? This is a blame game, and of no real importance. This is to concentrate on the dust, as Fernand Braudel called it, of short-term events. If we want to understand what is going on, we need to look at two other temporalities, which are far more revealing. One is that of medium-term cyclical swings. And one is that of the long-term structural trends.
  As for our immediate short-run ad interim prospects, it is clear what is happening everywhere. We have been moving into a protectionist world (forget about so-called globalization). We have been moving into a much larger direct role of government in production. Even the United States and Great Britain are partially nationalizing the banks and the dying big industries. We are moving into populist government-led redistribution, which can take left-of-center social-democratic forms or far right authoritarian forms. And we are moving into acute social conflict within states, as everyone competes over the smaller pie. In the short-run, it is not, by and large, a pretty picture.
• A Power That May Not Stay So Super
  DECLINE Even as the future King Edward VIII shot a tiger in India in 1921, Britain’s empire was overstretched. By DAVID LEONHARDT Published: October 11, 2008 AT the turn of the 20th century, toward the end of a brutal and surprisingly difficult victory in the Second Boer War, the people of Britain began to contemplate the possibility that theirs was a nation in decline. They worried that London’s big financial sector was draining resources from the industrial economy and wondered whether Britain’s schools were inadequate. In 1905, a new book — a fictional history, set in the year 2005 — appeared under the title, “The Decline and Fall of the British Empire.” [Decline]
• What will the US foreign policy be tomorrow ?
  By Michel Collon When Bush goes, everyone will be hoping for a change - or fearing the worst. McCain or Obama ? What will that change for Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Africa, Caucasia, Cuba and Venezuela ? And for US relationships with the big powers : Europe, Japan, Russia, China ? This text is extracted from our book « The 7 sins of Hugo Chávez » (Chapter 11 : [The United States] Black gold and the wars of tomorrow), shortly to be published. The preceding pages explained the reason for the rise and then decline of the United States. [Imperialism] [Decline]
• I survived the Georgian war. Here's what I saw.
  I blame Georgia's leaders.
  By Lira Tskhovrebova from the October 8, 2008 edition Tskhinvali, South Ossetia - In a speech before the United Nations last month, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili implored world leaders to set up an international investigation to find out the truth about the war in South Ossetia. I couldn't agree more. But I think the results of an honest investigation would reveal a very different "truth" than what President Saakashvili claims. I know this because I was in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on Aug. 7 when Georgian troops marched into the city and killed my friends and neighbors. I huddled with my family in terror for three nights while Saakashvili's tanks and rockets destroyed hundreds of our homes, desecrated cemeteries, gutted schools and hospitals.
• Did poor teaching lead to crash?
  By Zoë Corbyn 25 September 2008 Business academics are accused of ignoring social and political questions. Zoe Corbyn reports Business academics should take some blame for the global financial crisis because they have ignored fundamental social and political questions in favour of "narrow" teaching and scholarship. This is the view of Stefano Harney, a reader in strategy and director of global learning at the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London, who has completed a study of more than 2,300 leading research papers in the field. This week, he criticised leading business and management researchers, saying their work tended to focus on solving "small technical problems" such as product placement and supply chains. He said they had failed to examine the larger social and political questions that could provide fundamental answers on how to create a better world. [Washington Consensus]
• Why Has The Philippines Lagged?
  Josef Yap and Jenny Balboa* Compared with other economies in East Asia, economic growth in the Philippines has been disappointing. The Philippines was, notably, not described as a ‘high-performing economy’ by the World Bank in its 1993 study of the East Asian Miracle, while Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia were included in this group.
  Lack of a coherent industrial policy. Some analysts argue that the Philippine government has not played an effective strategic role in providing the necessary physical, institutional and social infrastructure for industrialisation. Instead, it has allowed economic managers to follow a program that largely mimicked the Washington consensus. [Washington Consensus] [Development]
• From a Supporter to a Challenger? Japan's Currency Leadership in Dollar-Dominated East Asia at the Brink of Financial Collapse
  Saori N. Katada and R. Taggart Murphy <> We present two perspectives on the conundrum of Japan's yen-dollar currency strategy at a time when the yen continues to strengthen against the dollar. With the crisis on Wall Street dominating the news, both speak insightfully to the sub-prime loan crisis that has shaken Wall Street since September 2008 and the challenges that the US, Japanese and world economy faces. The Katada article is here. Why Japan Clings to the Declining Dollar R. Taggart Murphy Saori Katada poses a most compelling question: why does Japan continue to denominate so much of its accumulated export earnings in dollars? Katada frames the question slightly differently, asking why Japan has not moved from being a “supporter” of the dollar-denominated currency regime in East Asia to being a “challenger.” But it’s essentially the same question. Supporting the dollar is largely a matter of using the dollar as the primary settlements and reserve currency for your foreign trade and investments, which the Japanese have done since 1945 -- first because they had no choice and then, from the early 1970s on, as deliberate policy. The question is particularly salient in light of the longterm decline in the value of the dollar. Katada notes that there has been a good deal of talk emanating from Tokyo about the “internationalization” of the yen, but until Japanese companies begin to denominate their export earnings in yen – which means billing foreign customers in yen and redeploying export profits in yen – that’s all it is: talk. [Reserve]
• Southeast Asian Memo to Wall St: On Financial Implosion
  Shawn W Crispin BANGKOK - Seared into Southeast Asia's collective memory is the iconic image of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, where International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Michel Camdessus towered with crossed arms over a bent-down Indonesian President Suharto as he signed a sovereignty-eroding bailout agreement for his distressed economy. Now with Wall Street's historic collapse, many in the region eagerly anticipate a reciprocal Kodak moment, with a US investment banker signing over his once-prestigious financial assets to an acquiring Japanese banker, Chinese money manager or perhaps even Singapore's champion of state-led capitalism, Lee Kuan Yew. If Wall Street has its nationalistic way, they will have to wait.
• Declining Public Support for Global Engagement
  September 24, 2008 From: To: Section 4: Global Threats and Security Concerns Seven years after the 9/11 attacks, terrorism is the public's top international concern. Nearly three-quarters of Americans (72%) say that Islamic extremist groups like al Qaeda represent a major threat to the well-being of the United States. Fewer regard the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, tensions between Russia and its neighbors, or Pakistan's political instability as major threats to the United States [Threat]
• One Way Up: U.S. Space Plan Relies on Russia
  Published: October 5, 2008 STAR CITY, Russia — This place was once no place, a secret military base northeast of Moscow that did not show up on maps. The Soviet Union trained its astronauts here to fight on the highest battlefield of the cold war: space. Yet these days, Star City is the place for America’s hard-won orbital partnership with Russia, where astronauts train to fly aboard Soyuz spacecraft. And in two years Star City will be the only place to send astronauts from any nation to the International Space Station. The gap is coming: from 2010, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shuts down the space shuttle program, to 2015, when the next generation of American spacecraft is scheduled to arrive, NASA expects to have no human flight capacity and will depend on Russia to get to the $100 billion station, buying seats on Soyuz craft as space tourists do. [Decline]
• Out of the shadows
  Published: October 3 2008 22:06 | Last updated: October 3 2008 22:06 Unquestionably, Dick Cheney has been the most influential vice-president in US history. Especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he took a remarkably expansive view of the ill-defined powers of his office. He energetically enlarged his own role relative to that of the president, and the power of the White House relative to that of other branches of government. It was nothing less than a constitutional revolution. Angler (the title comes from Cheney’s Secret Service codename) is the best account so far of the vice-president’s drive for "power without limit". It is an absorbing if depressing book. Barton Gellman bases his narrative on a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles that he and Jo Becker (now with The New York Times) wrote for The Washington Post last year. He draws on the reporting of other journalists too. Readers familiar with the original articles in The Post, and steeped in recent books by Jane Mayer (The Dark Side), Jack Goldsmith (The Terror Presidency), Bob Woodward (too many to mention), and others, will find no striking new disclosures. But they will find, in one place, a remarkable tale extremely well told.[Cheney]
• Command for Africa Is Established by Pentagon
  By THOM SHANKER Published: October 4, 2008 WASHINGTON — For decades, Africa was rarely more than an afterthought for the Pentagon. Responsibilities for American military affairs across the vast African continent were divided clumsily among three regional combat headquarters, those for Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East. Commanders set priorities against obvious threats, whether the old Soviet Union and then a resurgent Russia, a rising China or a nuclear North Korea, or adversaries along the Persian Gulf.
• Uighur Detainees May Be Released to U.S.
  Chinese Muslims Held at Guantanamo Aren't Considered Enemy Combatants
  By Del Quentin Wilber Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, October 5, 2008; Page A03 A federal judge is considering whether to order a group of detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay released into the United States, in what would instantly become a landmark legal decision in the years-long battle over the rights of terrorism suspects there. The men, a small band of Chinese Muslims who have been held for nearly seven years, are no longer considered enemy combatants by the U.S. government, but they are caught in a well-documented diplomatic bind. Unlike other captives, they cannot be sent to their home country because Beijing considers them terrorists, and they might be tortured. The government released five of the detainees, known as Uighurs (pronounced "WEE-gurz"), to Albania in 2006, but no other country wants to risk offending China by accepting the others. The Uighurs' attorneys argue that the men have been confined for too long on flimsy evidence and pose no security threat to the United States. The lawyers want them released into this country -- most likely into the Washington area, where there is a Uighur community -- suggesting that authorities could supervise them much as they monitor criminal defendants released pending trial. Later, the government could find the Uighurs another home, the lawyers say.   [Double standards] [Global insurgency]
• A Rational Russia Policy?
  By Masha Lipman Saturday, October 4, 2008; Page A17 MOSCOW -- In the first presidential debate, Barack Obama said that he and John McCain "agree for the most part" on issues regarding Russia. But while both were tough on Russia, their consensus, such as it is, is hardly the result of shared clarity on U.S. policy toward Russia. In fact, neither candidate has outlined a policy that would overcome the current confrontations with Moscow and make the world more secure. The big question is how they expect to change Russia's behavior. The overwhelming public support here of the war in Georgia has reinforced the position of the Russian leadership, and Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev are no more ready to compromise or concede to U.S. criticism than the United States is willing to accept Medvedev's claim that Russia has "privileged spheres of interest." Russia today simply dismisses the United States as an international authority.
  The United States no longer has a sympathetic constituency in Russia that views America as a force for good that may help make Russians' lives freer, more democratic or more prosperous. These days, people who still view the United States so positively are hard to find, even among the liberal intelligentsia, and the U.S. reaction to the war in Georgia further reduced their numbers. Putin's autocratic regime enjoys strong support here: In September, Putin's approval rating was 88 percent and Medvedev's 83. [Decline] [Resurgence] [Democracy]
• Edge of the Abyss
  By Paul Krugman Published: October 2, 2008 As recently as three weeks ago it was still possible to argue that the state of the U.S. economy, while clearly not good, wasn’t disastrous — that the financial system, while under stress, wasn’t in full meltdown and that Wall Street’s troubles weren’t having that much impact on Main Street. But that was then.
  A solution to our economic woes will have to start with a much better-conceived rescue of the financial system — one that will almost surely involve the U.S. government taking partial, temporary ownership of that system, the way Sweden’s government did in the early 1990s. Yet it’s hard to imagine the Bush administration taking that step.
  One thing’s for sure: The next administration’s economic team had better be ready to hit the ground running, because from day one it will find itself dealing with the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.
• Robert Fisk's World: When it comes to Palestine and Israel, the US simply doesn't get it
  Biden and Palin hid like rabbits from the centre of the Middle East earthquake
  Saturday, 4 October 2008 Palestinians ceased to exist in the United States on Thursday night. Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin managed to avoid the use of that poisonous word. "Palestine" and "Palestinians" – that most cancerous, slippery, dangerous concept – simply did not exist in the vice-presidential debate. The phrase "Israeli occupation" was mercifully left unused. Neither the words "Jewish colony" nor "Jewish settlement" – not even that cowardly old get-out clause of American journalism, "Jewish neighbourhood" – got a look-in. Nope. Those bold contenders of the US vice-presidency, so keen to prove their mettle when it comes to "defence", hid like rabbits from the epicentre of the Middle East earthquake: the existence of a Palestinian people. Sure, there was talk of a "two-state" solution, but it would have mystified anyone who didn't understand the region. There was even a Biden jibe at George Bush for pressing on with "elections" – again, the adjective "Palestinian" went missing – that produced a Hamas victory. But Hamas appeared to exist in never-never land, a vast landscape that gradually encompassed all the vast and black deserts that stretch, in the imagination of US politicians, from the Mediterranean to Pakistan. "Pakistan's (nuclear) missiles can already hit Israel," Biden thundered. But what was he talking about? Pakistan has not threatened Israel. It's supposed to be on our side. Both vice-presidential candidates seemed to think that our ally in the "war on terror" was now turning into an ally of the axis of evil. Even Islam didn't get a run for its money.
  Indeed, one of the funniest reports of the week, yet another investigation of Obama's education, came from the Associated Press news agency. The would-be president, the Associated Press announced, had attended a Muslim school but hadn't "practised" Islam. What on earth did this mean, I asked myself? Would AP have reported, for example, that McCain had attended a Christian school but hadn't "practised" Christianity? Then I got it. Obama had smoked Islam but he hadn't inhaled!
• Chomsky: "The Majority of the World Supports Iran"
  By Subrata Ghoshroy, AlterNet. Posted October 3, 2008. In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview, Chomsky discusses the global politics of Iran's and India's attempts to become nuclear powers. On Wednesday night, in a vote of 86 to 13, the U.S. Senate passed a historic nuclear deal with that will allow the United States to trade with India in nuclear equipment and technology, and to supply India with nuclear fuel for its power reactors. The deal is considered hugely consequential by its supporters and opponents alike -- and a significant victory for the Bush administration. Last month, Subrata Ghoshroy, a researcher in the Science, Technology and Global Security Working Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, met with Noam Chomsky in his office at MIT, where he is the institute professor of linguistics. "Before we started our discussion," Ghoshroy writes, "Professor Chomsky asked me to give him a little background information. I told him that I was researching missile defense, space weapons and the U.S.-India nuclear deal." Ghoshroy is a longtime critic of the U.S. missile defense program and a former analyst at the Government Accountability Office who in 2006 blew the whistle on the failure -- and attempted cover-up -- of a key component of the program: a $26 billion weapon system that was the "centerpiece" of the Bush administration's antimissile plan. Ghoshroy and Chomsky discussed the then-pending nuclear deal, which would sanction trade hitherto prohibited by U.S. and international laws because of India's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the nuclear tests it conducted in 1998. Ghoshroy has written several articles criticizing the U.S.-India deal as a triumph of the business lobby -- an assessment Chomsky agreed with. He said that Condoleezza Rice is actually on record admitting what is truly behind this deal, which he characterized as a "non-proliferation disaster." [Nuclear deal]
• Chomsky: "If the U.S. Carries Out Terrorism, It Did Not Happen"
  By Subrata Ghoshroy, AlterNet. Posted October 4, 2008. In an exclusive interview, Noam Chomksy weighs in on the financial collapse, the election and the power of U.S. propaganda.
  Part Two of Subrata Ghoshroy's exclusive interview with Noam Chomksy takes on the United State's capacity for revisionist history and propaganda, from Ronald Reagan's supposed commitment to free markets, to American terrorist actions in Latin America in the 1980s, to the bankrupt rationale for Clinton's intervention in Bosnia. Chomsky also elaborates on MIT's role in developing computer technology in the service of the military industrial complex -- which he discussed in Part One. Finally, he puts the current financial crisis into global context -- and weighs in on the presidential election, explaining why, like any other race in which two pro-business parties dominate everything -- it is "not a serious election." [media]
• Can China save the global economy?
  Jamil Anderlini gauges opinion at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin [Video]
• An Open Letter to Mohammed ElBaradie Using the IAEA to Spy on Iran
  By Sasan Fayazmanesh October 3 - 5, 2008
  In your “Introductory Statement to the Board of Governors” of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on September 22, 2008, you assured Iran that your agency will protect her legitimate military secrets if she supplies such information about some “alleged studies” (http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2008/ebsp2008n007.htm). You stated: I reiterate that the Agency does not in any way seek to “pry” into Iran’s conventional or missile-related military activities. Our focus is clearly on nuclear material and activities. We need, however, to make use of all relevant information to be able to confirm that no nuclear material is being used for nuclear weapons purposes. I am confident that arrangements can be developed which enable the Agency to do its work while ensuring that Iran’s legitimate right to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information and activities is respected. I again urge Iran to show full transparency and to implement all measures required to build confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear programme at the earliest possible date.
  Dr. Elbardei, as you know, your agency was used in the case of Iraq to “pry” into legitimate military secrets of Iraq. [IAEA] [Espionage]
• Moscow Says U.S. Leadership Era Is Ending
  By ANDREW E. KRAMER Published: October 2, 2008 MOSCOW — Perhaps inevitably for a country often lectured by the United States about its own economy, Russia is using the occasion of the American financial crisis to do some lecturing of its own.
  President Dmitri A. Medvedev has blamed what he called financial "egoism" for the crisis and said it should be taken as a sign that America’s global economic leadership was drawing to a close. Along with some European leaders, Mr. Medvedev has called for greater multilateralism in financial regulation, echoing a Russian position on international relations generally. "The times when one economy and one country dominated are [Decline]
• America’s chance to kick its Asian addiction
  By David Pilling Published: October 1 2008 18:43 | Last updated: October 1 2008 18:43 Did America hang itself with Asian rope? I put this to a Chinese official last week and, quick as a flash, he responded: "No. It drowned itself in Asian liquidity." Asia’s part in America’s financial downfall has been two-fold. First, shiploads of cheap goods from China and other low-cost producers helped keep a lid on US prices. That lulled the Fed, with its tight focus on the consumer price index, into thinking it could have it both ways: high growth with low inflation.     Second, Asian bank reserves of $4,300bn (£2,400bn, €3,000bn) – enough to fund Treasury secretary Hank Paulson’s bail-out six times over – combined with petrodollars to provide the US with almost endless liquidity. This poured into US Treasuries and Fannie and Freddie bonds, suppressing US interest rates, inflating the housing bubble and funding buy-now pay-later consumption. Western banks and hedge funds used Asia, particularly Japan, as an enchanted pool of money. Through the so-called carry trade, they dipped their ladles into its ultra-low interest rate waters and splashed the proceeds around on exotic, high-yield instruments. For a while it all worked beautifully. You know the rest.
• Alleged Holocaust denier held at Heathrow•
  Teacher detained under German arrest warrant • Court to consider extradition request Owen Bowcott The Guardian, Thursday October 2 2008 Gerald Frederick Töben, 64, who was en route from the US to Dubai when he was seized, was sentenced to nine months in prison in 1999 by a German court under a law that prohibits "defaming the dead". He was held under a German arrest warrant, issued in 2004, which alleges that he had carried out "worldwide internet publication" of material that was antisemitic, and denied, approved or played down the mass murder of Jews perpetrated by the Nazis during the second world war. The warrant stated that he had committed the offences in "Australia, Germany and other countries".   [Human rights]
• Our man in Kabul says US strategy is failing•
  French weekly reveals ambassador's dispatch • Jihadis flooding into Afghanistan, says general Julian Borger, diplomatic editor and Simon Tisdall in Washington The Guardian, Thursday October 2 2008
  Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan believes the US strategy there is failing, Nato reinforcements would be counter-productive and that it would be better if "an acceptable dictator" came to power in Kabul in the next few years, a French satirical weekly reported yesterday. The comments attributed to Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles were included in a diplomatic dispatch from a French diplomat in Kabul published by the French weekly, Le Canard Enchaîné, which combines investigative journalism and satire. Reporting on a meeting on September 2, the French diplomat, Jean-François Fitou, quoted Cowper-Coles as saying: "The American strategy is destined to fail. "The coalition presence - particularly the military presence - is part of the problem, not the solution," Cowper-Coles is quoted as saying. More Nato troops would have "a perverse effect". "It would identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and multiply the number of targets [by insurgents]." According to the published memo, he also says the elected Afghan government of Hamid Karzai had lost all trust, and that it would be a "positive thing" if in five to 10 years, after the departure of British troops, the country was governed by "an acceptable dictator".
• IAEA chief: Nuclear states set example for others
  By GEORGE JAHN – 1 day ago VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The chief U.N. atomic inspector suggested Tuesday that nuclear weapons states bore some blame for other countries seeking such arms, because they are modernizing arsenals rather than scrapping them. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke on the sidelines of a 145-nation IAEA meeting that has focused partly on proliferation concerns exemplified by North Korea and Iran. North Korea, which set off a test nuclear blast two years ago, has frozen its disarmament efforts and is moving toward resupplying its plutonium producing reprocessing plant. Iran has defied U.N. Security Council demands that it stop uranium enrichment while stonewalling an IAEA probe into allegations it worked on a nuclear weapons program in the past. The U.S. France and Britain — three nuclear weapons states that have ratified the Nonproliferation Treaty — are particularly critical of Iran. Although ElBaradei focused on "all" nuclear weapons states, his comments appeared to be a particular challenge to those three to set an example. "How can I go with a straight face to the non-nuclear-weapon states and tell them nuclear weapons are no good for you, while the weapon states continue to modernize and to say 'we absolutely need nuclear weapons,'" ElBaradei
  But Syria is a favorite for the Middle East and South Asia group, which has a right to fill a rotating board seat this year. "There is near consensus in our group for us," Mohammad Badi Khattag, Syria's chief representative to the IAEA, told The Associated Press. Another diplomat familiar with the issue said, however that — while Syria was favored — Afghanistan had the backing of at least three Middle East and South Asia members. He demanded anonymity for divulging confidential information. If the group remains split on its choice, the full meeting will decide by secret ballot, forcing a showdown in a forum that usually works by consensus. A Western diplomat at the meeting — who also asked to remain unnamed for divulging confidential information — said Tuesday that most, if not all, European nations were ready to back Afghanistan, along with the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan. On the other side of the fence were most Islamic nations and many other developing countries traditionally voting against Washington on nuclear-related issues.said. [Double standards] [IAEA] [US dominance]
• Bolivia: Defeat of the Right
  by Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 242, Oct. 1, 2008
  UNASUR called for dialogue. Morales called for dialogue himself, even before the UNASUR resolution. The right is stymied. Its last hope was some U.S. intervention. But Bolivia has now expelled the U.S. ambassador, Philip Goldberg, for "conspiring against democracy," that is, with the Bolivian right. The United States is now withdrawing its small aid projects in Bolivia. Russia has offered to enter the breach. The United States is becoming more and more irrelevant in Latin America. [Decline]
• Karzai seeks talks with Taliban
  By Jon Boone in Kabul Published: September 30 2008 12:06 | Last updated: October 1 2008 07:41 President Hamid Karzai risked angering members of his government and his US backers on Tuesday when he revealed he had asked the Saudis to help broker peace talks with the Taliban leadership. Mr Karzai said his envoys had travelled to Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Pakistan to try to kick-start negotiations that are increasingly seen as the only solution to the violent insurgency gripping Afghanistan.    
• Recapitalise the banking system
  By George Soros Published: October 1 2008 02:05 | Last updated: October 1 2008 02:05 The emergency legislation currently before Congress was ill-conceived – or more accurately, not conceived at all. As Congress tried to improve what Treasury originally requested, an amalgam plan has emerged that consists of Treasury’s original Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Tarp) and a quite different capital infusion programme in which the government invests and stabilises weakened banks and profits from the economy’s eventual improvement. The capital infusion approach will cost tax payers less in future years, and may even make money for them.
• Even After a War With Russia, Many Georgians Revere Stalin
  GORI, Georgia — With his signature mustache, medal-encrusted Soviet marshal’s uniform and determination to be addressed as “Comrade,” the Stalin impersonator Jamil Ziyadaliev should perhaps be out of work in Georgia, a country still reeling from a war with Russia. But Mr. Ziyadaliev, 64, an avuncular father of two who dresses as Stalin even on days off, insists that business has seldom been better. He is a frequent hired guest at weddings, where he dances to Soviet Katyusha music from World War II. The benefits of looking eerily like the former dictator, he boasts, include free meals, free car repairs — and free passage through Russian checkpoints. “Looking like Stalin is like having a visa in Georgia,” said Mr. Ziyadaliev, a Muslim originally from Azerbaijan, who drove a taxi, peddled vegetables and worked as an accountant before deciding on a career as a modern incarnation of the brutal, diabolically brilliant Soviet tyrant. “All Georgians respect Stalin, because he was a great leader who created a great empire — and of course, he was the most famous Georgian who ever lived,” Mr. Ziyadaliev said.
• Israel still opposes IAEA inspections for nuclear programme
  The International Atomic Energy Agency's 145 member countries gathered in Vienna for the 52nd general conference, an annual week-long meeting. Tuesday, 30 September 2008 12:46 Israel on Monday opposed a renewed demand to open up its nuclear programme to international inspections. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 145 member countries gathered in Vienna for the 52nd general conference, an annual week-long meeting for drawing up general policies on a whole range of issues, from non-proliferation, nuclear terrorism to medical applications of nuclear technology. Arab League states prepared to table a resolution called Israel's nuclear capabilities urging all Middle East states not to test or develop atom bombs and not to stand in the way of a regional nuclear-free zone. [IAEA] [Double standards]
• A Primer on the Wall Street Meltdown
  by Walden Bello
  Many on Wall Street are still digesting the momentous events of the last ten days: * 1-3 trillion dollars worth of financial assets wiped out. * Wall Street effectively nationalized, with the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department making all the major strategic decisions in the financial sector and, with the rescue of the American International Group (AIG), the US government now runs the world’s biggest insurance company. * The biggest bailout since the Great Depression, with $700 billion, being desperately put together to save the global financial system.
  The usual explanations no longer suffice. Extraordinary events demand extraordinary explanations.
• It's over, and Putin won
  Chechnya is being rebuilt with Russian oil cash and its leader obeys Moscow. Separatist ideas are on ice
  Jonathan Steele in Grozny The Guardian, Tuesday September 30 2008
  No corkscrew. That's the first surprise about Chechnya. Unlike in Baghdad today or Kabul during the Soviet occupation, planes don't arrive high above the airfield and then dip one wing in a steep and terrifying spiral so as to reduce the risk of ground fire as they land. In Grozny they glide in over woods and villages, apparently confident there are no resistance fighters lurking in wait. Surprise number two is the amount of reconstruction in the Chechen capital. Five years ago when I last visited Grozny it still looked like the ruins of Dresden or Hiroshima, street after devastated street. Now new nine-storey blocks of flats, shops, and cafes flank the main streets. In the central square workers are laying the last paving stones outside what is described as Europe's largest mosque, a concrete replica of Istanbul's Blue Mosque, financed and largely built with Turkish aid and Turkish engineers.

• A Better Bailout
  By Joseph E. Stiglitz
  September 26, 2008 The champagne bottle corks were popping as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced his trillion-dollar bailout for the banks, buying up their toxic mortgages. To a skeptic, Paulson's proposal looks like another of those shell games that Wall Street has honed to a fine art. Wall Street has always made money by slicing, dicing and recombining risk. This "cure" is another one of these rearrangements: somehow, by stripping out the bad assets from the banks and paying fair market value for them, the value of the banks will soar. There is, however, an alternative explanation for Wall Street's celebration: the banks realized that they were about to get a free ride at taxpayers' expense. No private firm was willing to buy these toxic mortgages at what the seller thought was a reasonable price; they finally had found a sucker who would take them off their hands--called the American taxpayer.
• We Have the Bailout Money--We're Spending It on War
  By Chalmers Johnson September 29, 2008 There has been much moaning, air-sucking and outrage about the $700 billion that the US government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York bankers who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting greed drive their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar amounts of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the military-industrial complex and powerful senators and representatives allied with the Pentagon. On Wednesday, September 24, right in the middle of the fight over billions of taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of Representatives passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a murmur of public protest or any meaningful press comment at all. (The New York Times gave the matter only three short paragraphs buried in a story about another appropriations measure.) [Military industrial complex] [Militarisation]
• China response to America’s financial meltdown
  Author: Peter Drysdale
  Harold James, Professor of History and International Relations at Princeton University, writes that only China has the firepower and capacity to rescue the international financial system from the threats from America’s financial meltdown today (Project Syndicate, September 2008). This is not just a financial and economic crisis, he suggests. Rather, like the financial and economic shocks that led to the Great Depression through the 1920s and 1930s, it is a drama that must play out on the world geopolitical stage. [Decline] [China rise]
• A shattering moment in America's fall from power
  The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is overAll comments (369) John Gray The Observer, Sunday September 28 2008 Our gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over
  China in particular was hectored relentlessly on the weakness of its banking system. But China's success has been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is not Chinese banks that are currently going bust. How symbolic yesterday that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees. [Decline] [Reserve][China rise]
• The United States goes crony capitalist
  Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research [Column]
  The people of Korea must be laughing at the United States, right? If not they certainly should be.   Just over a decade ago, South Korea was suffering the fallout from the East Asian financial crisis. Its currency had plummeted, many of its banks and corporations faced bankruptcy and its unemployment rate was soaring. The United States came to the rescue (sort of) with money from the International Monetary Fund and lectures about good economic practices.   In just four decades South Korea had risen from being from being one of the world’s poorest countries to a European standard of living. In spite of this extraordinary record, the economic experts from the United States denounced the Korean system as "crony capitalism." They told South Korea that it should alter its institutional structure to be more like the United States.
    At this point (September 26th), it is not clear exactly what the final version of a bailout will look like or even if it will get passed. Whatever the final outcome of this proposal, it is clear the economic elite in the United States are not prepared to follow the advice they give to other countries. Tough times are only for other countries. Crony capitalism is just fine for the United States. [Double standards]
• One-On-One With Sarah Palin
  CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric Interviews Alaska's Governor On The Ailing Economy NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 2008
  (CBS) When CBS News anchor Katie Couric sat down for an exclusive interview with vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, she focused on the economy - but also addressed reports that the lobbying firm of Sen. John McCain's campaign manager received payments from the controversial mortgage giant Freddie Mac until last month. Couric asked for the Alaska governor's reaction to that.
  But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more. Palin: He's also known as the maverick though, taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about - the need to reform government.
  Couric: But can you give me any other concrete examples? Because I know you've said Barack Obama is a lot of talk and no action. Can you give me any other examples in his 26 years of John McCain truly taking a stand on this?
  Palin: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.
  Couric: I'm just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.
  Palin: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you.
• McCain’s Suspension Bridge to Nowhere
  By FRANK RICH Published: September 27, 2008 WHAT we learned last week is that the man who always puts his “country first” will take the country down with him if that’s what it takes to get to the White House. For all the focus on Friday night’s deadlocked debate, it still can’t obscure what preceded it: When John McCain gratuitously parachuted into Washington on Thursday, he didn’t care if his grandstanding might precipitate an even deeper economic collapse. All he cared about was whether he might save his campaign. George Bush put more deliberation into invading Iraq than McCain did into his own reckless invasion of the delicate Congressional negotiations on the bailout plan.
• McCain Calls Obama's NK Policy as Naive
  U.S. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain called his Democratic nemesis Barack Obama’s willingness to hold direct talks with North Korea without any preconditions attached, so as to resolve the deadlocked nuclear progress, a display of being "naive," Yonhap News reported Saturday. "I will sit down with anybody but there's got to be preconditions," Sen. McCain (R-Arizona) said in his first nationally televised presidential debate with Illinois Senator Obama Friday. [US Election08]
• Impulsive, Impetuous, Impatient
  By Nicholas D. Kristof Published: September 27, 2008
  Suppose John McCain had been in the White House in October 1962, facing one of the great tests of the modern presidency. If so, we might remember that period not as “the Cuban missile crisis” but as “World War III.” As Mr. McCain demonstrated in Friday evening’s debate, he is a serious foreign policy thinker who has traveled widely, and he certainly showed vision and bipartisanship in helping to repair relations with Vietnam. But it’s equally clear that in recent years Mr. McCain has become impish cubed — impulsive, impetuous and impatient — and those are perilous qualities in a commander in chief. Although he is frantically trying to distance himself from President Bush, Mr. McCain, by his own accounting, would be more Bushian in foreign policy than even Mr. Bush is now. While Mr. Bush has been forced to accept more sensible policies in his second term, Mr. McCain has become steadily more of a neocon in the cowboy role that Mr. Bush played in his first term, prone to solving problems with stealth bombers rather than United Nations resolutions. Judging from Mr. McCain’s own positions, he might well revive a cold war with Russia and could start a hot war with Iran or North Korea. In those three hot spots, Mr. McCain could constitute a dangerous gamble for this country:
  North Korea is one of the Bush administration’s greatest failures, and Mr. McCain seems intent on making it worse. For eight full years, the Clinton administration kept North Korea from obtaining plutonium to make a single nuclear weapon; on Mr. Bush’s watch, North Korea has obtained enough for a half dozen weapons and has conducted a nuclear test. Even President Bush recognized the failure of his first term’s hard-line policy and abandoned it, instead pursuing negotiations and diplomatic solutions with North Korea. Mr. McCain fumes that this is accommodation and seems to prefer the first-term fist-waving that was emotionally satisfying but failed catastrophically. A McCain administration would thus apparently mean no more diplomatic track with North Korea. The upshot would be North Korea’s restarting its nuclear weapon assembly line. In similar circumstances in 1994, Mr. McCain raised the prospect of military strikes on North Korea and suggested that war might be inevitable (instead, President Clinton stopped plutonium production with a negotiated deal).  [US NK policy] [US Election08]
• Asian economies
  Published: September 26 2008 09:34 | Last updated: September 26 2008 22:21 New Zealand – the first country to see daylight each morning – has become the first economy in the Asia-Pacific region to stumble into the darkness of recession. Second-quarter GDP data showed a decline in private consumption and exports, offset by a rise in government spending. Japan is halfway there. Will there be more casualties in the once-robust region?
• What They Really Said
  Sunday, September 28, 2008; Page Foreign policy analysts and others share their assessments of the first presidential debate. Here are contributions from: Henry A. Kissinger, Michael O'Hanlon, Michael Rubin, Nancy Soderberg, Stephen P. Cohen, Michael J. Green
  HENRY A. KISSINGER
  Former secretary of state and national security adviser Iranian nuclear military capability is unacceptable for the following reasons: It would stimulate a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, the most dangerous region in the world. It would strengthen Iran's capability to encourage and support jihadism. It would undermine the credibility of the international community, which has demanded that Iran not develop nuclear weapons. To avoid this, we must determine how much time is available for diplomacy -- in other words, how close Iran is to developing nuclear weapons, and what sanctions are appropriate if diplomacy fails. I favor strong sanctions, but before strong sanctions are invoked a diplomatic phase is important. It should be conducted on the working level including, if necessary, the secretary of state. It should not start at the presidential level. Sen. McCain accurately reflected my views on the subject of negotiations.
  MICHAEL O'HANLON
  Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of Opportunity '08, a bipartisan effort to raise awareness about policy issues The discussion of North Korea was factually accurate but unsatisfying. Obama was right that a lack of attention by the Bush administration contributed to the crisis of 2002-03 and the ensuing quadrupling of North Korea's estimated nuclear arsenal. McCain was correct that high-level engagement was tried by the United States to little avail with Secretary Albright in the 1990s, not to mention former secretary Bill Perry about the same time. He was also right that we should "trust but verify" any deal with North Korea. However, the conundrum remains: How do we get North Korea to give up its bombs and, ideally, begin to reform its political and economic system (as fellow Asian communist states Vietnam and China have done)? Either we need more leverage or a greater willingness to offer incentives (assuming that military options are off the table, as both candidates seem to understand that they should be. Either we need more sticks or more carrots -- or both. I heard little along these lines from either. I believe the right approach is to offer North Korea a much better relationship, and lots of international help to get there, if it makes necessary reforms and denuclearizes. But if Pyongyang refuses such a deal, we should try to argue to Seoul, Beijing and Moscow that tougher measures, including more restrictions on aid and investment, are required in response. Those tougher multilateral measures could in turn lead North Korea to reassess its recalcitrant, hard-line stance (as it did after the North Korean nuclear test of 2006). Other basic concepts and strategies are plausible as well, but -- to paraphrase a different part of the debate -- a strategy built on just tactics and process is not promising, and that is all we really heard from either candidate on this subject. [US NK policy] [US Election08]
• US ‘will lose financial superpower status’
  By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin Published: September 25 2008 11:55 | Last updated: September 25 2008 20:28 The US will lose its role as a global financial "superpower" in the wake of the financial crisis, Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said on Thursday, blaming Washington for failing to take the regulatory steps that might have averted the crisis. "The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system. This world will become multipolar" with the emergence of stronger, better capitalised centres in Asia and Europe, Mr Steinbrück told the German parliament. "The world will never be the same again." His were the most outspoken comments by a senior European government figure since Wall Street fell into chaos two weeks ago. He later told journalists: "When we look back 10 years from now, we will see 2008 as a fundamental rupture. I am not saying the dollar will lose its reserve currency status, but it will become relative."   [Decline] [Reserve]
• 'New thinking' needs new direction
  Mary Kaldor The Pentagon could change from Terror Warrior to Human Security agent. It needs the Presidential direction to do so. 25 - 09 - 2008 Is it possible to suppose that the United States might finally experience its own perestroika after the end of the Cold War? I am not referring to the movement around Barack Obama's call for change, although that could potentially be a critical factor in reinforcing and sustaining the new phenomenon of perestroika. Nor am I referring to the financial crisis although that too could provide an impulse for transformation. Rather I am talking about the far reaching debate and indeed restructuring currently going on inside the Pentagon as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Military industrial complex] [Decline] [US military] [Imperialism]
• Bush's efforts to curb nuclear weapons stumble on two fronts
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers UNITED NATIONS — The deepest freeze in U.S.-Russia relations since the Cold War has brought diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions to a halt just as Western governments and U.N. inspectors are warning that Tehran could be gaining the ability to build a nuclear weapon. Russia this week pulled out of a six-nation meeting scheduled for Thursday to discuss further sanctions against Iran, freezing for the time being a 3 1/2-year old diplomatic campaign to persuade Tehran to abandon uranium enrichment. Neither the United States nor Israel has ruled out attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, although there are no overt signs that planning for a military strike has intensified. The Bush administration's other major effort to curb the spread of nuclear weapons suffered a significant setback Wednesday, when North Korea, which has tested a crude nuclear device, told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to restart a reprocessing plant that produces plutonium for nuclear weapons.
• Pakistani and American Troops Exchange Fire
  By ERIC SCHMITT Published: September 25, 2008 WASHINGTON — Pakistani and American ground troops exchanged fire along the border with Afghanistan on Thursday after the Pakistanis shot at two American helicopters, ratcheting up tensions as the United States increases its attacks against militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who are being sheltered in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas. The two American OH-58 Kiowa reconnaissance helicopters were not damaged and no casualties were reported on either side from the ground fire. But American and Pakistani officials agreed on little else about what happened in the fleeting mid-afternoon clash between the allied troops.
• No Recession for Arms Sales
  Frida Berrigan | September 19, 2008 The CEO of a weapons manufacturer has plenty of chances to rub elbows with deputy secretaries of defense, officials from Homeland Security, retired military personnel, and the best and brightest of the defense establishment almost any week of the year. One such opportunity occurred at the ComDef 2008 conference, which wrapped up at the National Press Club in Washington on September 3. Sponsored by weapons giants like Boeing, Raytheon, and BAE Systems, the day-long conference was organized around the theme of "Defense Priorities in an Age of Persistent Conflict." It featured presentations from a Navy undersecretary, a deputy director at the Pentagon, several weapons manufacturers, and defense representatives from France, the Netherlands, Canada, and elsewhere. With this high-powered lineup, the conference probably delivered on the promise of its catch line: "Where the international defense cooperation community gets down to business." [Military industrial complex]
• A Bumpy Engagement With the U.N.
  Bush Leaves Legacy of Fractious Diplomacy and Modest Successes
  By Michael Abramowitz and Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, September 23, 2008; Page A16 UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 22 -- Almost every September since he has been president, George W. Bush has made a pilgrimage here to speak to the General Assembly. On one of those occasions, Bush forecast the tepid reaction he knew he would receive, telling then-U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton: "Well, it's my annual trip up here to the wax museum." This Story A Bumpy Engagement With the U.N. World Leaders At U.N. Fear For Aid Efforts The Trail: McCain, Aides to Join Palin at Meetings with World Leaders As Bush prepares for his final address Tuesday to the General Assembly, there's little doubt that many U.N. diplomats and bureaucrats will be happy to see him go. Few have been fans of what they see as his cowboy style of diplomacy, epitomized by the invasion of Iraq without a Security Council resolution in 2003. For his part, Bush has no great enthusiasm for the United Nations, which he views as a morally compromised organization that has not stepped up to challenges such as genocide in Darfur, Saddam Hussein's repeated violations of Security Council resolutions and human rights abuses elsewhere in the world, said former administration officials and others close to the president. [UNUS]
• Western Lawyers Say Iraq Discarded Due Process in Hussein Trial
  By JOHN F. BURNS Published: September 24, 2008 CAMBRIDGE, England — Nearly two years after an Iraqi court sentenced Saddam Hussein to death, new disclosures by Western lawyers who helped guide the court have given fresh ammunition to critics who contend that he was railroaded to the gallows by vengeful officials in Iraq’s new government.
• Vested interests drive US's Pakistan policy
  By Gareth Porter WASHINGTON - The George W Bush administration's decision to launch commando raids and step up missiles strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda figures in the tribal areas of Pakistan followed what appears to have been the most contentious policy process over the use of force in Bush's eight-year presidency.
  But officials of SOCOM and the CIA prevailed, apparently because Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney believed they could not afford to be seen as doing nothing about bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the administration's final months. SOCOM had a strong institutional interest in a major new operation in Pakistan.
• The limits of power
  By Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News Published: September 22, 2008, 00:04 The Russian-Georgian conflict may have marked a turning point in international relations. In highlighting Russian challenge to American primacy and Washington's limits of power, it may be bringing to an end the world order that existed from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until today. During the past 20 years or so, world affairs were characterised by the virtually uncontested primacy of the United States. The collapse of the traditional counterweight to American power made it possible to wage war against Iraq, weaken the Palestinians, pressure North Korea, accelerate the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, and wage war against Serbia in the late 1990s. American influence reached the very borders of Russia and recruited former republics of the Soviet Union into Euro-Atlantic organisations, in part to ensure that Russia remained permanently weakened. More recently the absence of Russia as a counterweight to the United States was so significant that opposition to the 2003 Iraq war at the UN Security Council came not from rival Russia, but from friendly France. Invigorated by a booming economy, a modernised military, and an assertive leadership, Russia warned against what it saw as the provocative Euro-Atlantic push eastward and the threatening proximity to Russian borders of a Western military alliance. [Decline] [Resurgence]
• Young and Arab in Land of Mosques and Bars
  By MICHAEL SLACKMAN Published: September 21, 2008 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — In his old life in Cairo, Rami Galal knew his place and his fate: to become a maintenance man in a hotel, just like his father. But here, in glittering, manic Dubai, he is confronting the unsettling freedom to make his own choices.
  Here Mr. Galal, 24, drinks beer almost every night and considers a young Russian prostitute his girlfriend. But he also makes it to work every morning, not something he could say when he lived back in Egypt. Everything is up to him, everything: what meals he eats, whether he goes to the mosque or a bar, who his friends are. [Islam]  
• $700 Billion Is Sought for Wall Street in Vast Bailout
  By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN Published: September 20, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed a vast bailout of financial institutions in the United States, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from the private firms. The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt. [Decline]
• A Modernized Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan
  Militia Operates a Parallel Government
  By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 20, 2008; Page A01 KABUL, Sept. 19 -- Just one year ago, the Taliban insurgency was a furtive, loosely organized guerrilla force that carried out hit-and-run ambushes, burned empty schools, left warning letters at night and concentrated attacks in the southern rural regions of its ethnic and religious heartland.
  Today it is a larger, better armed and more confident militia, capable of mounting sustained military assaults. Its forces operate in virtually every province and control many districts in areas ringing the capital. Its fighters have bombed embassies and prisons, nearly assassinated the president, executed foreign aid workers and hanged or beheaded dozens of Afghans. The new Taliban movement has created a parallel government structure that includes defense and finance councils and appoints judges and officials in some areas. It offers cash to recruits and presents letters of introduction to local leaders. It operates Web sites and a 24-hour propaganda apparatus that spins every military incident faster than Afghan and Western officials can manage.
• Is It the Dawn of the Reregulation Era?
  Regulation has been a dirty word in business—and in Washington—for decades. But government oversight is looking a lot better lately by Michael Mandel BW Exclusives The 30-year era of deregulation came to a sudden and surprising end on Sept. 16. Late that evening the Federal Reserve extended $85 billion to take an unprecedented 80% stake in American International Group (AIG) in order to save the floundering insurance giant. Less than two weeks earlier, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had announced that the federal government was taking over Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), the colossal mortgage agencies. Suddenly the U.S. financial sector could not survive without government help. Since the long-ago days when Jimmy Carter was President, regulation has been a dirty word in Washington. Politicians of both parties vied to see how much of the economy they could free from the oppressive yoke of government control. The deregulation movement started when Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Later, as it spread from energy to trucking to telecommunications to financial services, the rallying cry was the same: Less regulation, more growth. But the implosion in financial services—until recently seen as the shining example of U.S-style free market capitalism—is the definitive sign that deregulation has lost its allure.
• Is the U.S. Losing Its Edge in Tech?
  The U.S. still leads the world in IT, but other countries are closing the gap, according to a new study for the Business Software Alliance
  by Arik Hesseldahl There's no place like the U.S. when it comes to creating a thriving tech sector. Or is there? The U.S. still has the world's most competitive information technology industry, but its lead is slipping, according to a new study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) for the Business Software Alliance (BSA) [Decline]
• Free for all
  With the world's money markets in turmoil, globalisation is a dirtier word than ever. It is blamed for destroying communities and widening the rift between rich and poor. But, argues Chris Patten, its opponents are hypocrites - free trade is still the best option
  Chris Patten The Guardian, Friday September 19 2008
  I have just done the shopping at one of our local supermarkets in the Tarn region of France. At the entrance to the Leclerc car park in Gaillac there is a McDonald's. Today it looked full. It looked full the last time I drove past too, with cars queueing at the outside takeaway hatch. McDonald's. In France. Full. Listen to many politicians and anti-globalisation campaigners in France, and the fast-food choices that so many French families make are collective acts of culinary treason. At the very least, in a country where restaurants serve snails, fast food is clearly culturally aberrant. Much more than that, however, McDonald's represents to these critics all that is worst in globalisation: indeed, it represents all that is worst, full stop. It stands for big, brutal, unethical business, for US imperialism, for environmental despoliation, for loss of jobs and local identity, for the rape of familiar terroir, for the further impoverishment of the downtrodden, and so on ... and on and on. The world is a bad place run by neoliberal ideologues. The state has been overthrown by roistering banks and grasping multinationals. All of which would be more convincing if the French themselves weren't such effective globalists. French businesses are globally very successful. Carrefour comes second only to Wal-Mart in size as a mass-market retailer. Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy owns New Zealand's Cloudy Bay wine. How's that for respect of terroir? [Globalisation]
• War and Drought Threaten Afghan Food Supply
  By CARLOTTA GALL Published: September 18, 2008 YAKOWLANG, Afghanistan — A pitiable harvest this year has left small farmers all over central and northern Afghanistan facing hunger, and aid officials are warning of an acute food shortage this winter for nine million Afghans, more than a quarter of the population.
  The crisis has been generated by the harshest winter in memory, followed by a drought across much of the country, which come on top of the broader problems of deteriorating security, the accumulated pressure of returning refugees and the effects of rising world food prices. The failure of the Afghan government and foreign donors to develop the country’s main economic sector, agriculture, has compounded the problems, the officials say. They warn that the food crisis could make an already bad security situation worse.
• Russia is determined to bring NATO’s Expansion Eastward to a Halt
  The ghost of Stalingrad
  by Eric Walberg Global Research, September 16, 2008 Al Ahram Weekly
  NATO’s metamorphosis from Cold War Euro-policeman into the unabashed global military arm of the United States over the past 18 years has left a trail of debris from the Balkans to Afghanistan that will take decades to clear. It is a flagrant violation of the agreement James Baker III made with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev that the US would not extend the borders of NATO eastwards in return for Moscow allowing a united Germany to be a member of NATO. Russia was still in disarray and in no position to protest when the Eastern European countries and the Baltics joined, but as this policy of expansion turned into a blatant encirclement of Russia and a conquest of the Middle East, a furious, now self-confident Russia has finally drawn the line, at least in its immediate neighbourhood, with Georgia and Ukraine the last straws
• Strategic Focus: U.S. Military Footprint
  [Militarisation]
• Mapping the Pentagon's Global Footprint
  Exclusive: In a yearlong project, the Mother Jones editorial team investigated US military activity around the globe, country by country. Presenting our new primer of the post-Bush world order. [Militarisation]
• Haemorrhaging of western influence at UN wrecks attempts to push human rights agenda
  Power shifting to Russia and China, study shows
  · EU defeated on issues from Burma to Balkans Ian Traynor in Brussels The Guardian, Thursday September 18 2008 The west's efforts to use the United Nations to promote its values and shape the global agenda are failing, according to a detailed study published yesterday. A sea change in the balance of power in favour of China, India, Russia and other emerging states is wrecking European and US efforts to entrench human rights, liberties and multilateralism. Western policies in crisis regions as diverse as Georgia, Zimbabwe, Burma or the Balkans are suffering serial defeats in what the study identifies as a protracted trend. The haemorrhaging of western power, as reflected in longer-term voting patterns in key UN bodies, is mirrored by the increasing clout of China, Russia and the Islamic world, according to an audit of European influence at the UN by the European Council on Foreign Relations [Decline] [Manipulation] [Human rights] [Softpower]
• The fruit of hypocrisy
  Dishonesty in the finance sector dragged us here, and Washington looks ill-equipped to guide us out
  Joseph Stiglitz The Guardian, Tuesday September 16 2008
  Houses of cards, chickens coming home to roost - pick your cliche. The new low in the financial crisis, which has prompted comparisons with the 1929 Wall Street crash, is the fruit of a pattern of dishonesty on the part of financial institutions, and incompetence on the part of policymakers. We had become accustomed to the hypocrisy. The banks reject any suggestion they should face regulation, rebuff any move towards anti-trust measures - yet when trouble strikes, all of a sudden they demand state intervention: they must be bailed out; they are too big, too important to be allowed to fail.
• Wall Street crisis is culmination of 28 years of deregulation
  By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — No one cog in the federal government's machine of financial regulation let down the country by failing to prevent the latest shakeout on Wall Street. The entire system did. "They just haven't done a particularly good job," said James Barth, a senior finance fellow at the Milken Institute, a nonpartisan research group based in Los Angeles. Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer-oriented research group, explained the regulatory lapses more starkly: "The job of regulators is that when the party's in full swing, make sure the partygoers drink responsibly," she said. "Instead, they let everyone drink as much as they wanted and then handed them the car keys." Analysts and politicians are raising serious questions about the nation's financial regulatory system, which dates to the New Deal era.
• Think Sarah Palin's nothing to laugh about? Then read this
  By Aaron Barnhart | Kansas City Star Considering that the largest audience in six years had tuned in to watch "Saturday Night Live," many of them curious to see what kind of treatment Sarah Palin would get on the show, and considering that Tina Fey is not exactly known for her characters (unless you count Liz Lemon, her "30 Rock" character, who may just be Fey channeling her single-gal years), it's pretty impressive that Fey was able to meet or exceed expectations with her dead-on (if Upper Midwest-sounding) impression of Sarah Palin on "SNL" last weekend. [Offshoring]  
• The New World Geopolitical Order: End of Act I
  Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 241, Sept. 15, 2008
  It would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of the agreement on September 9 between Nicolas Sarkozy of France in his capacity as current president of the European Union (EU) and Dmitri Medvedev, President of Russia. It marks the definitive end of Act I of the new world geopolitical order. What was decided? The Russians agreed to withdraw all their troops from what are called "central Georgian areas" or "Georgia proper," that is, those parts of Georgia the Russians recognize as Georgia. These troops are being replaced by 200 monitors from the EU. This is done on guarantees by the EU that there will be no use of force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
  This accord was reached between Europe and Russia, and the United States played no diplomatic role whatsoever. [Decline]
• Less Than Half the World Believes al Qaeda Was Behind 9/11 Attacks
  By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted September 11, 2008. A poll of 16,000 people in 17 countries reveals the damage done to the credibility of the United States by the Bush administration. An international poll released this week by the Project on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that outside the United States, many are skeptical that al Qaeda was really responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. Sixteen thousand people in 17 countries -- allies and adversaries in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East -- were asked the open-ended question: "Who do you think was behind the 9/11 attacks?" On average, fewer than half of all respondents said al Qaeda (although there was significant variation between countries and regions). Fifteen percent said the United States government itself was responsible for the attacks, 7 percent cited Israel, and fully 1 in 4 said they just didn't know. [Public opinion]
• Wall Street in turmoil
  By Francesco Guerrera in London, Krishna Guha in Washington and Greg Farrell in New York Published: September 14 2008 23:48 | Last updated: September 15 2008 05:50 Wall Street was in turmoil on Monday as Merrill Lynch found shelter in a $50bn takeover by Bank of America and Lehman Brothers said it would file for bankruptcy protection. BofA’s bold bid for Merrill came as the world’s top banks abandoned efforts to save Lehman and set out to build a firewall against further financial chaos with a $70bn liquidity pool to support other vulnerable institutions. EDITOR’S CHOICE Full coverage: Crisis on Wall Street - Sep-12Bank shares plummet in Europe - Sep-15Asian shares stumble on Lehman woes - Sep-15World’s biggest banks join forces - Sep-15BofA to buy Merrill Lynch for $50bn - Sep-15Barclays bails on Lehman talks - Sep-14The moves capped a weekend of high drama that could lead to one of the most radical reshapings in Wall Street history and set the scene for a volatile day on world stock markets
• Writers Posit That Foreign Policy Could Be a Bush Legacy
  By Michael Abramowitz Monday, September 15, 2008; Page A17 It's an article of faith at the White House that history eventually will look kindly on President Bush for his decision to take the country to war in Iraq, his handling of terrorism and other elements of a foreign policy that have been roundly criticized by most Democrats, many in the foreign policy establishment and some in his own party. But with four months still to go in his administration, Bush revisionism already is creeping in -- and not necessarily from traditional Bush loyalists. The past several months have brought several articles from prominent writers and intellectuals questioning the received wisdom that Bush's foreign policy has been a disaster. Whether they overturn that notion won't be known for years, but the essays do suggest there's more ferment about the Bush legacy than is sometimes acknowledged. One theme is that Bush changed course in the second term, pursuing more pragmatic policies on North Korea, Iran, Middle East peace and global warming. [Bizarre]
• U.S. Arms Sales Climbing Rapidly
  By ERIC LIPTON Published: September 13, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to rearm Iraq and Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies.
  Petty Officer First Class Scott Cohen/United States Navy President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, right, at a ceremony on Feb. 2, 2007, for the United States’ transfer to the Afghan Army of 213 Humvees and more than 12,000 light weapons. U.S. Weapons Abroad From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005.   [Arms sales] [Threat] [Military Industrial complex]
• ‘Do not follow the U.S. capitalism, treat it as a wicked teacher’
  Renowned economist Chang Ha-Joon advises to steer away from mistaken ideas about [Interview] Our misconceptions about Switzerland are that it “makes its money selling cuckoo clocks and cow bells, or that, put nicely, it makes its living on the finance and tourism industry, but that’s just wrong,” Cambridge University Professor Chang Ha-Joon, said recently in Seoul during his summer vacation. During a Hankyoreh interview August 20, he said Koreans need to do away with their mistaken ideas about the rest of the world

• Russia and Iran: crisis of the west, rise of the rest
  Paul Rogers Moscow's war in Georgia and Tehran's nuclear challenge highlight the failings of United States and European security policy, says Paul Rogers 21 - 08 - 2008 The military and political leaders of the United States and Europe could be forgiven in August 2008 for recalling the English phrase "it never rains, but it pours". For they are currently faced by a series of security problems in relation to Russia, Afghanistan and Iran, each of which is testing in its own right but which together strain their resources (and perhaps nerves) to the limit. These are only part of a chain of problems for strategists of the "west" (a category that analysts are notably feeling more and more obliged to qualify or clarify) that is highlighted in this period alone by events in Algeria, Iraq, Pakistan, and Poland.
  The similarity of language reveals one of the core realities of the complex and shifting landscape of early 21st-century global security: that the United States is responding to the "rise of the rest" with strenuous efforts to protect its own hegemonic role. This, coupled with Washington's predilection for tough talking and even (in the case of Iran) direct threats are likely to be both ineffective and counterproductive. [Decline]
• Are You Ready For Nuclear War?
  By Paul Craig Roberts August 18, 2008
  Pervez Musharraf, the puppet installed by the US to rule Pakistan in the interest of US hegemony, resigned August 18 to avoid impeachment. Karl Rove and the Diebold electronic voting machines were unable to control the result of the last election in Pakistan, the result of which gave Pakistanis a bigger voice in their government than America's. It was obvious to anyone with any sense—which excludes the entire Bush Regime and almost all of the "foreign policy community"—that the illegal and gratuitous US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israel's 2006 bombing of Lebanon civilians with US blessing, would result in the overthrow of America's Pakistani puppet.
  Back during the Nixon years, my Ph.D. dissertation chairman, Warren Nutter, was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. One day in his Pentagon office I asked him how the US government got foreign governments to do what the US wanted. "Money," he replied. "You mean foreign aid?" I asked. "No," he replied, "we just buy the leaders with money." It wasn't a policy he had implemented. He inherited it and, although the policy rankled with him, he could do nothing about it. Nutter believed in persuasion and that if you could not persuade people, you did not have a policy. Nutter did not mean merely third world potentates were bought. He meant the leaders of England, France, Germany, Italy, all the allies everywhere were bought and paid for. They were allies because they were paid. Consider Tony Blair. Blair's own head of British intelligence told him that the Americans were fabricating the evidence to justify their already planned attack on Iraq. This was fine with Blair, and you can see why with his multi- million dollar payoff once he was out of office. [Imperialism] [Corruption]
• After Musharraf, U.S. Struggles to Find New Pakistan Ally Against Taliban
  By JANE PERLEZ Published: August 22, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Now that Washington’s close friend, President Pervez Musharraf, is gone, the question is this: who among the array of characters in the political firmament here will America turn to in the messy fight against an emboldened Taliban? Mr. Musharraf, president and army chief for almost all of his nine-year tenure before he resigned Monday under threat of impeachment, served as a convenient one-stop shopping window. The Bush administration relied on him for military support to suppress the Taliban in the tribal regions, and for intelligence in rounding up people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda. In the end, it did not reap much of what it wanted. But Mr. Musharraf, the seemingly amenable autocrat, offered Washington a sense of leverage.
• Outside Edge: Fool’s gold consoles unloved America
  By Matthew Engel Published: August 22 2008 19:25 | Last updated: August 22 2008 19:25 There were not many journalists from non-combatant nations present in the remote corner of Beijing where Japan played the US in the Olympic women’s softball final on Thursday night. But a Scandinavian sat opposite me in the press room afterwards. We exchanged conspiratorial smiles: the Americans had lost and that always goes down well with everyone else at the Olympics. In the main stadium around the same time, two US relay teams dropped the baton and crashed?out of events they might have won. The smiles there, I understand, were less furtive. American unpopularity at the Olympics is hardly new. It is a natural response to a great and sometimes overweening power. But it has grown: many sports journalists remember the we-know-bestism that pervaded the badly run Atlanta games in 1996; and the effect of George?W. Bush’s presidency on America’s global standing is well-attested.
• Energy majors awash in money but not oil
  By Jad Mouawad Published: August 19, 2008 Oil production has begun falling at all of the major Western oil companies, and they are finding it harder than ever to find new prospects even though they are awash in profits and eager to expand. Part of the reason is political. From the Caspian Sea to South America, Western oil companies are being squeezed out of resource-rich provinces. They are being forced to renegotiate contracts on less-favorable terms and are fighting losing battles with assertive state-owned oil companies. And much of their production is in mature regions that are declining, like the North Sea. The reality, experts say, is that the oil giants that once dominated the global market have lost much of their influence — and with it, their ability to increase supplies.
  As late as the 1970s, Western corporations controlled well over half of the world's oil production. These companies — Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Total of France and Eni of Italy — now produce just 13 percent. Today's 10 largest holders of petroleum reserves are state-owned companies, like Gazprom of Russia and Iran's national oil company. [Decline] [Energy]
• Greenway: America botches Georgia
  By H.D.S. Greenway Published: August 19, 2008
  In years to come, the short, sharp Russo-Georgian war may be remembered as the nadir of American post-Cold War power and influence - the moment in the closing months of George W. Bush's hapless administration when all the damage that he has done to America's position in the world came into focus. The United States encouraged Georgia into thinking it was under American protection, built up and trained its armed forces with a little help from the Israelis, established one of the biggest embassies in the region to make it a center of American influence in the Caucasus, and, despite private warnings, issued public statements of undying support. And now America's client is wiping blood from its nose. The wreckage of Georgia's towns and countryside, however, is not as complete as the ruin of Bush's policies. [Decline]
• The west is strategically wrong on Georgia
  By Kishore Mahbubani
  Published: August 20 2008 19:19 | Last updated: August 20 2008 19:19 Sometimes small events can portend great changes. The Georgian fiasco may be one such event. It heralds the end of the post cold-war era. But it does not mark the return of any new cold war. It marks an even bigger return: the return of history. The post cold-war era began on a note of western triumphalism, symbolised by Francis Fukuyama’s book, The End of History. The title was audacious but it captured the western zeitgeist. History had ended with the triumph of western civilisation. The rest of the world had no choice but to capitulate to the advance of the west. [Decline] [Islam] [China confrontation] [Imperialism]
• Afghanistan on Fire
  August 21, 2008 Editorial The news out of Afghanistan is truly alarming. This week, Taliban forces staged two of their most complex and audacious attacks of the war. Nearly 100 insurgents killed 10 French paratroopers in an attack near Kabul. At least 10 suicide bombers mounted a coordinated assault on one of America’s largest military bases, wounding three American and six Afghan soldiers. An earlier attack at the base killed 12 Afghan workers. The number of United States and NATO casualties is mounting so quickly, that unless something happens soon this could be the deadliest year of the Afghan war. Kabul, the seat of Afghanistan’s pro-Western government, is increasingly besieged. And Taliban and foreign Qaeda fighters are consolidating control over an expanding swath of territory sprawling across both sides of the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Let us be clear about why this is so dangerous. The more territory the Taliban controls, the more money it can raise from narcotics and black-market activities to mount an even fiercer challenge against the foundering civilian governments in Kabul and Islamabad. And the more territory the Taliban controls, the more freedom Al Qaeda will have to mount new terrorist operations against this country and others. There is no more time to waste. Unless the United States, NATO and its central Asian allies move quickly, they could lose this war.
• Ad Campaign Promoting Islam to Roll Out In New York Subways
  Advertisements promoting Islam will be placed in New York City subway cars for one month beginning in September. Victoria Cavaliere reports from VOA's New York Bureau that the organizers of the ad campaign say they hope the ads will clarify some misunderstandings about the Muslim religion. The subway ad campaign, sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America, will roll out on September 15 in 1,000 subway cars through out New York City's subway system. The ads are simple and graphic, using phrases about Islam, such as "Head Scarf" or "Islam
• Amid promise of peace, Georgians live in terror·
  Russian militia accused of orgies of looting and rape
  · Fleeing villagers accuse Medvedev of betrayal Luke Harding in Gori The Guardian, Thursday August 14 2008 The first armoured personnel carrier nudged past the top of the hill. It paused as if getting its bearings, and then set off towards Tbilisi. Behind it, an endless column of Russian military vehicles appeared on a shimmering horizon - trucks, tankers, and a beaten-up Nissan.  
  Behind them, according to people fleeing those villages, came a militia army of Chechen and Ossetian volunteers who had joined up with the regular Russian army. The volunteers embarked on an orgy of looting, burning, murdering and rape, witnesses claimed, adding that the irregulars had carried off young girls and men.   [Media]  
• West's diplomats rush to save Musharraf from impeachment as resignation rumours grow·
  Britain and US say charges would only add to unrest · But opposition coalition insists general is punishedSaeed Shah in Islamabad The Guardian, Thursday August 14 2008 British and American diplomats are attempting to find an exit for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, a staunch western ally, before he is dragged through a humiliating impeachment process. [Democracy]
• China Thinks US Position Key to Dokdo Dispute
  By Sunny Lee Korea Times Correspondent BEIJING ? China thinks America's position will play a decisive role in the Dokdo dispute, while it sees Japanese military power far outstrips that of Korea, in the case of a full-blown military conflict between the two nations. ``Both Korea and Japan have American forces stationed there. In case of war, they both will have to look up to America,'' the Chinese Newsweek, a news weekly published by the state-owned China News Service, recently said in a two-page article. America runs war-time control of the Korean military, while Japan's Navy and Air Force are de facto integrated with the U.S. military. Therefore, without American agreement, Korea will have difficulty in mobilizing its military force to engage in a full-scale battle with Japan. At the same time, without an American nod, Japan will also have difficulty in mobilizing its Navy and Air Force, the article reasoned. The article concluded: ``In the Dokdo dispute, therefore, the American position will become the decisive factor. The party that earns American support will clearly win the military battle.'' Throughout the piece, the Korean term ``Dokdo'' is used, while the Japanese term, Takeshima, is followed in parenthesis. The article also reflects what many Chinese scholars believe: America values Japan over Korea   [Military balance] [Sovereignty]
• Whites will be minority group by 2042, Census predicts
  By Kat Glass | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — In a few decades, all Americans will be minorities. Non-Hispanic whites will drop below 50 percent of the population as early as 2042, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections to be released Thursday. That's about 10 years earlier than demographers previously had predicted, said Grayson Vincent, a demographer for the Census Bureau.
• Insurgency’s Scars Line Afghanistan’s Main Road
  By CARLOTTA GALL Published: August 13, 2008 SAYDEBAD, Afghanistan — Not far from here, just off the highway that was once the showpiece of the United States reconstruction effort in Afghanistan, three American soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were ambushed and killed seven weeks ago. The soldiers — two of them members of the National Guard from New York — died as their vehicles were hit by mines and rocket-propelled grenades. At least one was dragged off and chopped to pieces, according to Afghan and Western officials. The body was so badly mutilated that at first the military announced that it had found the remains of two men, not one, in a nearby field.
• The War We Don't Know
  By Mark Ames
  August 13, 2008 Five days after Georgia invaded and seized the breakaway separatist region of South Ossetia, sparking a larger-scale Russian invasion to drive Georgian forces back and punish their leaders, Russia surprised its Western detractors by calling a halt to the country's offensive. After all, the mainstream media, egged on by hawkish neocon pundits and their candidate John McCain, had everyone believing that Russia was hellbent on the full-scale annihilation and annexation of democratic Georgia. But then came Tuesday's cease-fire announcement--and we're now forced to ask ourselves serious questions about the recent conflict: what really started it, how dangerous was it and what, with serious careful consideration, could be done to prevent it from turning into a worst-case scenario?
  In that 1999 war, the United States led a nearly three-month bombing campaign of Serbia in order to rescue a beleaguered minority, the Albanians, and carve out a new nation. Self-determination trumped national sovereignty, over the objections of Russia, China and numerous other countries. Why, Russians and Ossetians (not to mention separatist Abkhazians in Georgia's western region) ask, should the same principle not be applied to them? The answer is clear: because we say so. That sort of logic, in an era of colossal American decline and simultaneous Russian resurgence, no longer works on the field.
  In fact, one of the most effective ways America could respond to this crisis is by rethinking its entire geopolitical approach of the past two decades, which has been hegemonic, arrogant, hypocritical and reckless. If we set a better example, then we could at least reclaim the moral authority, or "soft power," that we once had. Instead, we've left the world other more brutal lessons about geopolitical power and how to use it, and the Russians are showing they've learned from us well. One lesson they learned from Kosovo is that when you bomb a petty nationalist leader like Saakashvili or Milosevic, eventually--when the cease-fire is called and the sense of defeat settles in--the nationalist firebrand who brought them to defeat pays with his seat in power. [Separatism] [Double standards] [Decline] [Softpower]
• National Defense Strategy 2008
  US Department of Defense, June 2008
• By M K Bhadrakumar
  There is wide acclaim today among Indian strategic analysts and diplomatic editors that New Delhi has scored a major diplomatic victory in Afghanistan and that its "influence" in Kabul has "peaked". This victory has come on the back of Washington's strategic pro-India tilt and, in the period since end-2001 to date, India's earmarking of a staggering US$1.2 billion as assistance for Afghan "reconstruction".
  The message is simple: If Pakistan goes down, it will take India down with it. There is no such thing as absolute security. [India US Pakistan]
• Russia Steps Up Its Push; West Faces Tough Choices
  Joao Silva for The New York Times A Georgian woman and two children ran Monday on a street in Gori after hearing a jet overhead. More Photos > By HELENE COOPER Published: August 11, 2008 WASHINGTON — Russian troops stepped up their advance into Georgian territory on Monday, attempting to turn back the clock to the days when Moscow held uncontested sway over what it considers its "near abroad," and arousing increasing alarm among Western leaders. Even as they prepared to convene an emergency meeting of NATO on Tuesday and President Bush denounced the Russian actions in the strongest terms to date, the United States and its European allies faced tough choices over how to push back. They seemed uncertain how to adjust to a new geopolitical game that threatened to undermine two decades of democratic gains in countries that were once part of the Soviet sphere.    
  But there is a growing belief in European capitals and in Washington that the return of Russia to a position of great power could mean a redrawing of the Eurasia map, with Europe and the United States giving up on attempts to integrate former Soviet republics in the Caucasus into the Western orbit, while battling with Russia to keep Eastern European countries like Poland and the Baltic states. And Russia’s resurgence could mean an end to already-dwindling American and European hopes of bringing Russia along eventually as an ally of the West. At best, Russia would never be trusted; at worst, it would be seen as an adversary. [Decline] [Resurgence]
• A Shift in Focus
  July 2008 - Paul Rogers
  The Indo-Pakistan Factor Many US military planners believe it may be impossible for paramilitary forces in Afghanistan to be defeated or even curbed without neutralising the major military advantage they have of operating bases and training camps across the border in Pakistan. The problem is the deep reluctance of the Islamabad government to countenance any change, a reluctance greatly increased by the changing relationship between the United States and India, especially in relation to India’s increasing role in Afghanistan.
  It is in this context that this summer’s Taliban upsurge in Afghanistan has its wider political significance. From the perspective of the Pentagon, the need to confront Islamist militias in western Pakistan is not only urgent, but is becoming increasingly central to its prospects for success in Afghanistan. The problem is that broader regional trends make it less and less likely that any Pakistani government will be able to countenance this. Improving relations with India may look good from Washington’s perspective, not least in countering the increasing power of China, but the end result may actually increase its problems in Afghanistan. [India US Pakistan] Global insurgency] [Nuclear deal
• On Slog to Safety, Seething at West
  By ANDREW E. KRAMER and ELLEN BARRY Published: August 10, 2008 GORI, Georgia — In retreat, the Georgian soldiers were so tired they could not keep from stumbling. Their arms were loaded with rucksacks and ammunition boxes; they had dark circles under their eyes. Officers ran up and down the line, barking for them to go faster. All along the road was grief. Old men pushed wheelbarrows loaded with bags or led cows by tethers. They drove tractors and rickety Ladas packed with suitcases and televisions. As a column of soldiers passed through Gori, a black-robed priest came out of his church and made the sign of the cross again and again. One soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov. "We killed as many of them as we could," he said. "But where are our friends?" It was the question of the day. As Russian forces massed Sunday on two fronts, Georgians were heading south with whatever they could carry. When they met Western journalists, they all said the same thing: Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?
  Tatiana Gobozoyeva was riding in a van with 20 other refugees, many of whom had spent four days huddled in dirty basements. She said she considered the United States responsible for the Georgian aggression. Pyotr Bezhov, who fled the violence with his daughter Oksana on Sunday, stood by a dusty dirt road. "The biggest problem here is you, your country," he said. "You said that the Soviets were an evil empire, but it’s you that are the empire. "Not you personally, of course," he added. "But your government."   [Separatism] [Imperialism] [Decline]
• Pakistani Taliban Repel Government Offensive
  By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH Published: August 10, 2008 PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Taliban fighters forced Pakistani soldiers to retreat from a militants’ stronghold near the border with Afghanistan over the weekend, after a three-day battle sent civilians fleeing from government airstrikes. Military spokesmen said 6 soldiers had been killed, though the Pakistani Taliban put the number at 22. It was unclear how many civilians had died. The clash was the second in two weeks between government forces and the Taliban. The army has been trying to push the Taliban out of Swat, an area east of the tribal region, where a two-month-old peace agreement between the government of the North-West Frontier Province and the Taliban is in shreds. There was some speculation among Pakistanis that the sudden offensive in Bajaur was aimed at satisfying the Bush administration, which has increasingly criticized Pakistan for not doing enough to stop Taliban fighters from crossing the border into Afghanistan to attack American soldiers.
• US refuses to relax its grip on World Bank
  Heather Stewart The Observer, Sunday August 10 2008 Article historyAmerica is stubbornly defending its right to pick the next boss of the World Bank, despite mounting pressure from a coalition of 10 developing countries demanding an equal voice for the poor in decision-making, leaked papers reveal. The World Bank's member countries are locked in discussions over a package of reforms to its outdated constitution, in the hope of clinching a deal at its annual meeting in October. But developing countries, led by Brazil, have banded together to urge a radical shift in the balance of power. Documents obtained by The Observer show Washington is refusing even to discuss giving up the long-held convention that it appoints the Bank's president, while Europe chooses the director of the International Monetary Fund. [Imperialism] [Globalisation]
• Georgia's Risky Move
  By Dmitri Trenin For months, Russia's tactic was to prove to the west that Georgia was too irresponsible to be considered for admission to NATO. Georgia, for its part, sought to impress on the western publics and governments that Russia, in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, was an aggressor and occupier. All parties to the conflicts in the two breakaway regions tried to provoke the other side into "showing its true colors". Acting under time pressure, Georgia has dramatically upped the ante by mounting a large-scale military operation to recover the separatist enclave in South Ossetia. As expected, its now well-trained and well-equipped forces overran the Ossetian formations and took over their capital town, causing a massive loss of life. This spectacular Act I of the unfolding drama received only muted reaction in the international media. Not so the following Act. President Saakashvili has succeeded in causing Russia to move in with heavy forces. Immediately, the nature of the conflict has been transformed. It is no longer about an obscure ethnic group tucked in somewhere in the Caucasus mountains. The image reverberating around the world is that of Russia's recidivist invasion against one of its tiny neighbors. Moscow stepped right into the trap Tbilisi had laid for it.
• The Arab Seduction
  // It’s suggested that Russia exchange Iran for arms Yesterday Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held negotiations with Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Secretary-General of the National Security Council. According to the information of Kommersant, the talks focused on signing big arms contracts and developing business projects in Saudi Arabia with the participation of Russian companies. Lucrative offers can become the cost of Russia’s refusal to back Iran.
  Interestingly, Bandar bin Sultan is reputed the Saudi politician to have the closest ties with the current U.S. administration: He worked as Ambassador in Washington during 20 years, and he is a friend of the Bush family. He has especially close relations with Vice President Cheney, the hard-liner regarding Iran. It’s not to be ruled out that the present generous offers to Moscow were coordinated in Washington, which is now especially willing to neutralize Teheran’s allies. [Arms sales]
• US, Russia, China in Dogfight Over Jet Sales
  27/03/2008 | Moscow News,?12 2008 WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is bracing for tough competition from Russia and China as cash-flush Asian economies look up to the trio for a new breed of fighter jets to beef up their air forces, experts say. Japan, India, Australia and South Korea are keen to have the most modern, fifth generation, jet fighters while Southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia are reportedly eyeing fourth generation fighters from China. With Asia powering ahead with military modernization and capability growth, the United States wants to maintain leadership in defense sales in the region attracted by low cost offerings from Russia and China, experts said. [Arms sales]
• Spot the difference: L'Oreal denies 'whitening' Beyoncé Knowles' skin in cosmetics ad
  Dan Glaister in Los Angeles The Guardian, Saturday August 9 2008 Article history L’Oreal accused of 'whitening' Beyonce Knowles The light-skinned woman with the flowing blonde hair would like you to buy some hair dye. But a closer look at the advertisement for the cosmetics giant L'Oréal reveals that all is not well with the face of its campaign. It appears that L'Oréal has caused not just her hair but her skin to change colour. In an advertisement published in the September issues of several glossy fashion magazines, the singer Beyoncé exhibits a skin colour several tones lighter than her natural hue. After the metamorphosis was highlighted on a celebrity website, the company issued a statement denying any wrongdoing. [IM]
• MasterCard Creates an Islamic Debit Card
  The credit-card company pairs with Eoncap Islamic Bank to launch a Shariah compliant debit card with ATM functions
  by Lara Wozniak MasterCard Worldwide and EonCap Islamic Bank (a member of Malaysia's Eon Bank Group) have jointly launched what they are billing as the world's first Islamic debit MasterCard—the EonCap Islamic Debit MasterCard. The EonCap Islamic Debit MasterCard is basically a debit card with ATM functions as well. It also works on PayPass systems, which enables a person to swipe it on a terminal without the card leaving the cardholder's hand. It is referred to as blending traditional purchasing power with modern technology and is Shari'ah compliant. "It is designed to appeal to both Muslim and non-Muslim individuals who prefer better financial control as the card ensures that purchases are automatically deducted from the cardholder's account and approved only if enough funds exist within the account. It helps track spending, comes with worldwide acceptance at more than 26 million locations and can be used at an ATM for e-banking," says Fozia Amanulla, chief executive officer of Eoncap Islamic Bank. [Islam]
• Doha opportunity lost
  Guest Blogger: Jagdish Bhagwati, Professor at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.
  It’s too bad about the Doha Round. But I am afraid Australia could have played a more understanding role over India’s demand for a more generous safeguards provision for agriculture which employs a very large fraction of her labour force. Surely, trade concessions are not possible unless there is a safety net and the safety net has to vary in scope with the size of the feared market disruption. India is being excessively cautious in my view; but this is an election year and the government faces rising food and oil prices, making it risk-averse. Getting India on board by being more understanding of its fears over its farmers and allowing for a more generous Special Safeguard mechanism was surely not beyond US means. Besides, we must ask: what did the US itself offer by way of cutting the cap on her distorting subsidies? Pretty little! It is very hard for politicians in developing countries to tell their citizens that powerful and rich countries like the US can subsidise their agriculture and have their relatively unsubsidized farmers left open to compete with them. In economics, you can do that; but in politics you can’t. My observations were rather candid, I am afraid. Frankly, I do remain worried however that the US is not in a mood to see others’ viewpoints. And Australia has to be careful not to align itself too much with US viewpoints on everything, since the US is not any longer Charles Kindleberger’s ‘altruistic hegemon’ but rather what I have called a ‘selfish hegemon’, seeking its own lobby-driven interests farther than what we economists call ‘cosmopolitan advantage’. [Globalisation] [Decline] [Imperialism]
• Coalition in Pakistan Moves to Impeach Musharraf
  By JANE PERLEZ Published: August 7, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s usually fractious coalition government moved decisively for the first time on Thursday to impeach President Pervez Musharraf, who has been an important American ally in the campaign against terror but who has largely been pushed to the sidelines since his party lost elections in February.
  “It has become imperative to move for impeachment against General Musharraf,” said Asif Ali Zardari, the head of the Pakistan Peoples Party, sitting beside Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, at a noisy news conference.
• Casualties of the Afghan War
  by Andy Lehren, Gabriel Dance, Matthew Ericson and Ben Koski Published: August 7, 2008 Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, 563 American service members - listed here - have died in Operation Enduring Freedom, the global antiterror campaign. Of those deaths, according to an analysis by The New York Times, 510 have occurred in Afghanistan or are directly linked to the war.
• All options on the table?
  BY NOAM CHOMSKY
  (Counterpoint) 6 August 2008 NUCLEAR threats and counter-threats are a subtext of our times, steadily, it seems, becoming more insistent. The July meeting in Geneva between Iran and six major world powers on Iran's nuclear programme ended with no progress. The Bush administration was widely praised for having shifted to a more conciliatory stand — namely, by allowing a US diplomat to attend without participating — while Iran was castigated for failing to negotiate seriously. And the powers warned Iran that it would soon face more severe sanctions unless it terminated its uranium enrichment programs. Meanwhile India was applauded for agreeing to a nuclear pact with the United States that would effectively authorise its development of nuclear weapons outside the bounds of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), with US assistance in nuclear programmes along with other rewards — in particular, to US firms eager to enter the Indian market for nuclear and weapons development, and ample payoffs to parliamentarians who signed on, a tribute to India's flourishing democracy. Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Stimson Center and a leading specialist on nuclear threats, observed reasonably that Washington's decision to "place profits ahead of nonproliferation" could mean the end of the NPT if others follow its lead, sharply increasing the dangers all around. During the same period, Israel, another state that has defied the NPT with Western support, conducted large-scale military manoeuvres in the eastern Mediterranean that were understood to be preparation for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. In a New York Times Op-Ed article, "Using Bombs to Stave Off War," the prominent Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote that Iran's leaders should welcome Israeli bombing with conventional weapons, because "the alternative is an Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland."
  Purposely or not, Morris is reviving an old theme. During the 1950s, leading figures of Israel's governing Labor Party advised in internal discussion that "we will go crazy ("nishtagea") if crossed, threatening to bring down the Temple Walls in the manner of the first "suicide bomber," the revered Samson, who killed more philistines by his suicide than in his entire lifetime. [NPT] [Nuclear Deal]
• White House Denies Author's Accusations of Document Forgery
  By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 6, 2008; Page A02 The Bush administration joined former top CIA officials in denouncing a new book's assertion that White House officials ordered the forgery of Iraqi documents to suggest a link between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
  The claim was made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose book "The Way of the World" also contends that the White House obtained compelling evidence in early 2003 that Iraq possessed no significant stocks of nuclear or biological weapons but decided to invade the country anyway. Suskind, who has written two previous investigative books that contained criticism of Bush administration policies, described the alleged forgery as a deliberate "misusing of an arm of government, the kind of thing generally taken up in impeachment proceedings." White House condemnations of the book were equally dramatic, with officials blasting it as "gutter journalism." In separate statements, several former and current CIA officials disputed portions of the account, including two named by Suskind as key sources. "The notion that the White House directed anyone to forge a letter . . . is absurd," said White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto. The book's most contentious claims involve Tahir Jalil Habbush, the former head of intelligence in Saddam Hussein's government in the years before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. As the deadline for war neared, U.S. and British intelligence officials arranged a series of secret meetings with Habbush in early 2003 and confronted him regarding their concerns about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction . In those private meetings, Habbush explained why U.N. weapons inspectors had been unable to find evidence of active Iraqi WMD programs: There were none. According to Suskind, Habbush said Saddam Hussein had ended Iraq's nuclear weapons work after the first Persian Gulf war in 1991, and halted biological weapons research in 1996. [Disinformation]
• How to build a strong world economy
  Kemal Dervis
  Kemal Dervis heads the UNDP - the United Nations Development Programme. He asks us to look at the world economy not from the perspective of immediate financial woes, but three to five years in the future. The longer term prospects for the world economy are really very good, he argues. But realising the potential will require legitimate and functioning international institutions. 5 - 08 – 2008
• How Foreign Policy Functions Shifted to the Pentagon
  By Walter Pincus Monday, August 4, 2008; Page A09
  Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opened a hearing last Thursday on the creeping militarization of U.S. foreign policy by saying: "There has been a migration of functions and authorities from U.S. civilian agencies to the Department of Defense." He noted that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has described the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development as "chronically undermanned and underfunded for too long." As the hearing showed, two programs that began in 2006 provided through the Pentagon the kinds of military and development funds to partner countries in the fight against terrorism -- support that is traditionally directed by the State Department. [Militarisation]
• Downstairs from her glittering Chilean salon, there was a torture chamber
  By Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers SANTIAGO, Chile — During the darkest years of this country's military dictatorship, Mariana Callejas was an up-and-coming writer and the hostess of the era's most glamorous literary salon. Chile's leading authors trekked up to Callejas' hillside mansion every Thursday night to talk literature, have a few drinks and sometimes dance until the next morning. The salon offered a respite from the fear and violence of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's Chile, in which nearly 3,200 dissidents died or disappeared at the hands of government agents.
  Callejas was more than just a writer; she was an agent of the DINA, Chile's dreaded National Intelligence Directorate. Her then-husband, U.S. citizen Michael Townley, one of the U.S.-backed Pinochet regime's chief assassins, later was convicted of setting off the 1976 car bomb that killed former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his American colleague Ronni Moffitt in Washington.
• Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization
  By LARRY ROHTER Published: August 3, 2008 When Tesla Motors, a pioneer in electric-powered cars, set out to make a luxury roadster for the American market, it had the global supply chain in mind. Tesla planned to manufacture 1,000-pound battery packs in Thailand, ship them to Britain for installation, then bring the mostly assembled cars back to the United States.
  Bread in a New Zealand supermarket. Soaring transportation costs also have an impact on food, from bananas to salmon. But when it began production this spring, the company decided to make the batteries and assemble the cars near its home base in California, cutting more than 5,000 miles from the shipping bill for each vehicle. [IM] [Globalisation]
• Scientists Question FBI Probe On Anthrax
  Ivins Could Not Have Been Attacker, Some Say
  By Joby Warrick, Marilyn W. Thompson and Aaron C. Davis Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, August 3, 2008; Page A01 For nearly seven years, scientist Bruce E. Ivins and a small circle of fellow anthrax specialists at Fort Detrick's Army medical lab lived in a curious limbo: They served as occasional consultants for the FBI in the investigation of the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, yet they were all potential suspects.
  Over lunch in the bacteriology division, nervous scientists would share stories about their latest unpleasant encounters with the FBI and ponder whether they should hire criminal defense lawyers, according to one of Ivins's former supervisors. In tactics that the researchers considered heavy-handed and often threatening, they were interviewed and polygraphed as early as 2002, and reinterviewed numerous times. Their labs were searched, and their computers and equipment carted away. The FBI eventually focused on Ivins, whom federal prosecutors were planning to indict when he committed suicide last week. In interviews yesterday, knowledgeable officials asserted that Ivins had the skills and access to equipment needed to turn anthrax bacteria into an ultra-fine powder that could be used as a lethal weapon. Court documents and tapes also reveal a therapist's deep concern that Ivins, 62, was homicidal and obsessed with the notion of revenge. Yet, colleagues and friends of the vaccine specialist remained convinced that Ivins was innocent: They contended that he had neither the motive nor the means to create the fine, lethal powder that was sent by mail to news outlets and congressional offices in the late summer and fall of 2001. Mindful of previous FBI mistakes in fingering others in the case, many are deeply skeptical that the bureau has gotten it right this time. [cbw]
• Anthrax Case Renews Questions on Bioterror Effort
  By ERIC LIPTON and SCOTT SHANE Published: August 3, 2008 WASHINGTON — Until the anthrax attacks of 2001, Bruce E. Ivins was one of just a few dozen American bioterrorism researchers working with the most lethal biological pathogens, almost all at high-security military laboratories.
  Today, there are hundreds of such researchers in scores of laboratories at universities and other institutions around the United States, preparing for the next bioattack. But the revelation that F.B.I. investigators believe that the anthrax attacks were carried out by Dr. Ivins, an Army biodefense scientist who committed suicide last week after he learned that he was about to be indicted for murder, has already re-ignited a debate: Has the unprecedented boom in biodefense research made the country less secure by multiplying the places and people with access to dangerous germs? [cbw]
• The last great American reporter
  By Simon Kuper
  Published: August 1 2008 18:56 | Last updated: August 1 2008 18:56 In 1969, a young freelance reporter named Seymour Hersh got an interesting tip. On an early spring day the previous year, it seemed, something had taken place in a Vietnamese village that exceeded even the brutal bounds of the Vietnam war.
  Hersh got on the case. He began travelling the country in search of soldiers from the company mentioned in the tip-off. He wound up tracking down and speaking to more than 60 of the men, including platoon leader William Calley, who was living on the army base in Fort Benning, Georgia. Hersh and Calley, a diminutive, 26-year-old college drop-out from Miami, spoke for several hours. Then they went to buy steaks, beer and bourbon at the local grocery store, made dinner at Calley’s girlfriend’s apartment, and talked some more. The story Hersh strung together from that conversation and others was not so convivial: on March 16 1968, Calley’s men stormed into the village of My Lai, in South Vietnam, expecting to find members of a Viet Cong battalion that had taken part in the recent Tet Offensive. The Americans found no enemy soldiers. Instead, they shot, stabbed and gang-raped the village’s elderly, women, children and babies. A day later, they burned the place down. Hundreds of people were killed.
  Who, in Hersh’s opinion, has been the worst person in the US government these past 40 years? Which official really harmed the world? From Hersh’s point of view, knee-deep in American wrongdoing since Vietnam, it might be a tough question. Was it Richard Nixon, whom Hersh helped to impeach through his part in exposing the Watergate scandal? Or Henry Kissinger, whom Hersh calls a war criminal? How about the popular choice, George W. Bush? None of the three, it turns out. Rather, he answers: "Cheney. Easy."
  There are few real secrets out there, Hersh says. Much of what the US is doing right now would be clear to all of us if we read the foreign press carefully enough.
  His revelations on Abu Ghraib or the US’s plans for war in Iran or the puzzling Israeli bombing of a Syrian plant are read by policymakers everywhere. When Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf asked Bush about a Hersh article that described American contingency plans to seize Pakistan’s nukes, Bush replied: "Seymour Hersh is a liar." In fact, Hersh says, Bush repeated the words: "Seymour Hersh is a liar, is a liar." The remark is quoted in one of Bob Woodward’s books, I point out, so it must be true. "Must be true," Hersh laughs.
  Hersh calls Cheney "first-rate". "He’s really smart, he had very smart people working for him and he kept ties to all of them. He said – I think it was the first Sunday after 9/11: ‘We’re going to have to go to the dark side.’ Well, we had no idea what he meant. But you know: renditions, sanctions, murders. At least 12 countries as of now are free-fire zones. Our Special Force teams can go in and hit anybody without the ambassador knowing it, the CIA station chief knowing it."   "You guys" – he means Britain – "seem to be doing better with your security." Why is that? "Because you’re more intrusive," Hersh laughs. "I don’t think I’d use a payphone in London. My God, you’ve got that place wired. But it seems to be working. You did well with the subway stuff and others. I think you are more intrusive. And maybe we’ll end up that way too. It’s sad, because it does change your quality of your life." [Media] [Imperialism] [Surveillance]  
• No chance of a fair trial, Karadzic says in first statement·
  War crimes suspect says US wanted case dropped
  · Former American envoy 'told him to disappear' Ian Traynor in The Hague The Guardian, Saturday August 2 2008 Article history Karadzic in courtroom initial appearance U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb warlord awaiting trial for genocide, says that high-ranking officials in the 1990s US administration of Bill Clinton want him dead and that it will be impossible for him to receive a fair trial after 12 years on the run ended with his arrest last week, it emerged yesterday. "No one on earth believes in the possibility of an acquittal," Karadzic argued in a four-page statement which he was prevented from reading to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Thursday at a pre-trial hearing. "Others from President Clinton's team ... are in a hurry to see me dead." Karadzic said that several months after the Bosnian war ended in November 1995, Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy who engineered the peace settlement at Dayton in Ohio, made the genocide suspect an offer. "The offer was as follows: I must withdraw not only from public but also from party offices and completely disappear from the public arena."
• At Hague Tribunal, Karadzic Vows to Defend Himself
  By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, August 1, 2008; Page A10 THE HAGUE, July 31 -- Purse-lipped and gaunt, Radovan Karadzic appeared before a U.N. war crimes tribunal for the first time Thursday and in sharply worded Serbian vowed to defend himself against genocide and other charges "as I would defend myself against any natural catastrophe." In remarks that were cut short by the judge, the former Bosnian Serb leader suggested he would attempt to expose alleged double-dealing by the West, particularly the United States, in the wake of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. That could presage the kind of political grandstanding that former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who also represented himself, used to sidetrack his prosecution before he died in his cell at the tribunal's detention center.
• Human rights annual report 2007
  2008. 209 p. HC ; 533 ; 2007, 2008 Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Foreign Affairs Committee 9th report of session 2007-08.
  Includes coverage of issues relating to the United States, notably Rendition and definitions of torture.
  North Korea 145. The FCO notes that North Korea (officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is “widely considered to have one of the worst human rights records in the world”. The serious abuses that have been alleged include: abductions and disappearances; arbitrary detention and imprisonment for up to three generations of the same family; regular use of the death penalty (including political and extra-judicial and public executions); routine use of torture and inhumane treatment; forced abortions; political prison camps and labour rehabilitation camps; extreme religious persecution; and chemical experimentation.259
  147. As part of our Global Security: Japan and Korea inquiry, we took evidence from Norma Kang Muico, an East Asia researcher for Amnesty International. We asked her for her assessment of the British Government’s approach to human rights in North Korea. She argued: I have worked with the British Government on this matter for almost four years and it has been a very productive relationship […]. It is very difficult to work on human rights in North Korea […] but as a Government […] they can open up the country by continuing with their educational programmes, their exchanges and anything that will open the society and the country to other way s of thinking. […] The UK Government should continue that and continue their tradition of dialoguing with North Korea. They should never close the door because they can provide a venue for us to speak [Human rights] [Double standards] [Evidence] [Education]
• Senate report on US intelligence on Iraq
  Report on whether public statements regarding Iraq by U.S. government officials were substantiated by intelligence information, together with additional and minority views. 2008.
• The thirty-year war, revisited
  Paul Rogers The "war on terror" and the "long war" are losing their potency as shorthand guides to the global conflict. But the United States remains trapped by a military logic that guarantees an endless and unwinnable campaign, says Paul Rogers [Global insurgency] [military industrial complex]
• Afghanistan: Shoals Ahead for President Obama
  Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 238, August 1, 2008
  Obama has founded his campaign and become attractive to the American voters in large part on the basis of his position on the Iraq war. He opposed it publicly since 2002. He has called it a "dumb" war. He voted against the "surge." He has called for a withdrawal over 16 months of all combat troops. He has refused to agree that it was wrong to oppose the surge. While doing all that, he has always argued that the United States should do more in Afghanistan. This explicitly includes sending 10,000 more troops as soon as possible. He does not seem to think that the war there is somehow dumb. He does seem to think that the United States can "win" that war - with more troops and with more assistance from NATO. Once president, he may be in for a rude surprise.
  Under President Carter, the United States decided to try to oust a so-called Communist government deemed too close to Russia. We know now, via the release of archives from the Carter administration as well as via a famous interview given ten years ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski, then Carter's National Security Advisor, that U.S. support of the mujahidin predated by at least six months the intrusion of Soviet troops. Indeed, one of the objectives was precisely to lure the Soviet Union into intervening militarily on the correct assumption that this would ultimately badly misfire and weaken the Soviet regime at home. Bravo! It did that. But the U.S. policy also at the same time spawned both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban - a classic case of blowback for the United States. In any case, none other than Brzezinski is warning Obama against repeating the Soviet error.

• The more things change...
  RAMZY BAROUD (World View) 30 July 2008 US presidential hopeful Barack Obama's three-day visit to Israel, and one quick stop in Ramallah carried just one surprise; that he wished to meet with Palestinians at all. Those who count on Obama to drastically shift US foreign policy in the Middle East, can rest assured that there will certainly be a few cosmetic changes, here and there, but nothing substantial. True, Obama had promised some degree of withdrawal from Iraq, and a level of communication with Iran. But even these promises are ambiguous and can be easily modified to fit political interests and lobby pressures at any time. Any military deployment in Iraq, now we are told, would be matched with greater military build-up in Afghanistan, a sign that the militant mentality that motivated the war hawks in the Bush administration is yet to change, and the valuable lesson that bombs don't bring peace, is yet to be heeded.
• Trade talks broke down after Chinese shift on food
  By Keith Bradsher Published: July 30, 2008
  HONG KONG: China and India have seldom shared the same views on free trade in recent years, but they ended up on the same side at the collapse of world trade talks in Geneva on Tuesday because China made an abrupt about-face. Growing worries in China about food security now appear to have overridden the country's previous commitment to free trade — a commitment that has served it well until now as the country with the world's second-largest trade surplus after Germany. Since joining the World Trade Organization in November 2001, China has been a strong and outspoken defender of free-trade principles. It has been especially critical of the United States, for example, for invoking so-called "safeguard" rules to prevent an increase of Chinese textile imports that threatened to put American manufacturers out of business. But this week, China allied itself with Indian negotiators in insisting on safeguard rules for agriculture. China and India insisted that developing countries be allowed to impose prohibitively high tariffs on food imports from affluent countries to halt increases in imports that might put farmers in poor countries out of business. The United States and other food exporters refused to accept the Chinese and Indian position on food safeguards, and talks broke down. [Globalisation] {Protectionism] [China India cooperation]
• Doha trade talks collapse
  By Alan Beattie and Frances Williams in Geneva Published: July 29 2008 17:33 | Last updated: July 29 2008 23:07 The Doha round of global trade talks, now in its seventh year, broke up without agreement on Tuesday after nine days of tense negotiations. Sharp divisions between the US, India and China about access to agricultural markets in the developing world could not be bridged and the talks came to a grinding halt, scuppering efforts by Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, to broker a compromise.
• Burma and Zimbabwe witness the last gasps of the supreme global sheriff
  The west can no longer impose its will on the increasingly powerful and self-confident nations of the developing world All comments (48) Martin Jacques The Guardian, Wednesday July 30 2008 Article history We are but halfway through 2008 yet it has already born witness to a sizeable shift in global power. The default western mindset remains that the western writ rules. That is hardly surprising; it has been true for so long there has been little reason for anyone to question it, least of all the west. The assumption is that might and right are invariably on its side, that it always knows best and that if necessary it will enforce its political wisdom and moral rectitude on others. There is, however, a hitch: the authority of the self-appointed global sheriff is remorselessly eroding. [Decline]
• Karadzic Sent to Hague for Trial Despite Violent Protest by Loyalists
  By DAN BILEFSKY Published: July 30, 2008 BELGRADE, Serbia — Long one of the most-wanted fugitives in the world, Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader blamed for inciting his followers to join him in a brutal ethnic war, was en route to The Hague early Wednesday, according to the Serbian war crimes prosecutor.
  About 15,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade on Tuesday night to support the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is facing war crimes charges. A motorcade carrying Mr. Karadzic to the airport left hours after stone-hurling nationalists clashed with the police in central Belgrade at a rally to protest his arrest last week on war crimes charges, and his likely extradition to stand trial before an international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
  Mr. Karadzic was escorted by masked Serbian security officers and taken from the Belgrade war crimes court at roughly 3:45 a.m., according to the prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic.
• Talks collapse despite progress on a list of issues
  WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy announced after long hours of hard talking that ministers have failed in their effort to agree on blueprint agreements in agriculture and industrial products. He told a press conference after speaking to members that out of a to-do list of 20 topics, 18 had seen positions converge but the gaps could not narrow on the 19th — the special safeguard mechanism for developing countries.
  He said he would call a formal meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee the following day for members to comment but he suggested they should wait for the “dust to settle” before deciding how to move ahead. “It is no use beating around the bush. This meeting has collapsed. Members have not been able to bridge their differences,” he told journalists later. [Globalisation] [Protectionism]
• Another Blow To Justice
  By Jamie Gorelick Tuesday, July 29, 2008; Page A17 Another stunning report has documented the bold and illegal influence of politics at the Justice Department over the past eight years. For decades, Republican and Democratic attorneys general had protected from political influence the hiring of career prosecutors and administrative judges. There was an unbroken rule, embodied in law, regulation and department policy, that no political questions would be asked of those who wanted to serve in career -- as opposed to political -- positions in the department. We demanded of our Justice Department, in its core prosecutorial and adjudicative functions, that it be separate from politics. Until the Bush administration.
• Pakistani prime minister says US-orchestrated missile strike on village would be violation
  The Associated Press Published: July 29, 2008 WASHINGTON: U.S. President George W. Bush took care to say it twice after his meeting with Pakistan's new prime minister: The United States respects Pakistan's sovereignty. For many in Pakistan, the assurances may ring hollow. Later Monday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was asked in a CNN interview whether a missile strike on Monday against a religious school just inside Pakistan's border with Afghanistan was a violation of Pakistani sovereignty. Gilani answered: "Certainly, yes. If it is proved like this, it is certainly yes." [Imperialism] [Sovereignty] [Islam]
• Snub for Iran eases nuclear crisis
  By M K Bhadrakumar
  A window of opportunity for Iran to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) seemed to have opened when on July 18 the Russian news agency quoted a source in the Foreign Ministry in Moscow hinting at such a prospect. It happened two days after Washington let it be known that a shift in its Iran policy was under way. The unnamed Russian diplomat said the SCO foreign ministers at a meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, a week later would decide on whether to lift a moratorium on bringing in new states. "The moratorium has lasted for two years. We have now decided to consider the possibility of the SCO's enlargement," he said. It appeared that weathering US opposition, Moscow was pushing Iran's pending request for SCO membership. Founded in 2001, the SCO currently comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran has observer status
  What emerges is that Moscow and Beijing take great care that their doublespeak on the Iran problem never quite gets to the point of antagonizing Washington. [SCO] [US dominance]
• Doubts Pakistan can assert control over spy agency
  Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:29pm EDT By Simon Cameron-Moore ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistanis doubt whether their new civilian leaders are capable of asserting control over a powerful military spy agency after what was widely seen as a botched attempt at the weekend. The timing could not have been more embarrassing for Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, in the United States for a meeting with President George W. Bush on Monday that focused on Pakistan's role in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Last week, Washington demanded (sic) Pakistan investigate Indian and Afghan accusations that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was involved in a Kabul suicide bombing that killed 58 people outside the Indian embassy, including two diplomats. Gilani's four-month-old government has issued denials of ISI complicity but can say only what the spies and army divulge. [India US Pakistan] [US dominance]
• Iranian president: 'Big powers' going down
  By GEORGE JAHN – 10 hours ago TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's president on Tuesday blamed the U.S. and other "big powers" for global ills such as nuclear proliferation and AIDS, and accused them of exploiting the U.N. for their own gain and the developing world's loss. But, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, time was on the poor countries' side. "The big powers are going down," Ahmadinejad told foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Tehran. "They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era." [Decline]
• U.S. Slams China, India at WTO Talks
  The United States has exchanged harsh words with China and India at world trade talks in Geneva. U.S. delegate David Shark Monday accused the two countries of threatening to sink a fragile deal reached over the past week at the World Trade Organization meeting. [Globalisation] [Protectionism]
• Pakistani leader reproaches Bush for missile strike
  By Jonathan S. Landay and Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — A U.S. missile strike that's believed to have killed a senior al Qaida operative in Pakistan's tribal area roiled talks Monday between President Bush and Pakistani Prime Minister Sayed Yousaf Gilani, who reproached Bush for acting unilaterally and failing to share intelligence with Pakistani authorities. A U.S. official defended the missile strike as a message that Washington will no longer abide Pakistan's failure to deny al Qaida and the Taliban refuge at a time of surging cross-border attacks on U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. "If they (Pakistan) aren't doing anything, then we are," said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue publicly. Pakistan, however, considers U.S. strikes on its territory violations of its sovereignty and interference in its internal affairs. [Sovereignty] [US dominance]
• Federal Deficit Grows After Three Years of Decline
  By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 28, 2008; 4:16 PM The federal budget deficit will surge to $482 billion next fiscal year, a record dollar amount, driven by continuing war costs and an economic slowdown that is not likely to turn around fast, White House officials announced today. After three successive years of decline, this year's deficit will jump as well to $389 billion, although that estimate is less than earlier projections by the Bush administration [Finance]
• Billions: The Politics of Influence in the United States, China and Israel
  Peter Dale Scott and Connie Bruck
  Introduction Peter Dale Scott Connie Bruck’s account of billionaire Sheldon Adelson using his millions to refashion the politics of Israel strikes several familiar notes. Around the world states are in standoffs against their richest citizens. In Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra has challenged the traditional monarchist establishment of the country. The Russian oligarchs dominated Russian politics for a decade in the Yeltsin era. In Mexico a similar role has been played by oligarchs such as Carlos Hank González (d. 2001), and Carlos Slim Helù, today the second richest man in the world. In many cases, billionaires have used their control of media to solidify their influence in politics. [Democracy]
• WTO: China throws up barrier to Doha agreement·
  WTO faces fight before ending trade stalemate
  · Europe to agree 80% cut in some CAP subsidies Larry Elliott, economics editor The Guardian, Monday July 28 2008
  Last-ditch talks to secure a new global free-trade agreement were entering a second fraught week in Geneva today as China became the latest stumbling block to ending almost seven years of marathon negotiations. Pascal Lamy, the director general of the World Trade Organisation, tabled new proposals last night in the hope of securing a deal by the middle of the week that would liberalise international trade in agriculture, manufactured goods and services. WTO sources said Lamy was confident of a final breakthrough after a cabal of the organisation's 150 members - the US, the European Union, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia and China - agreed a deal late last week that would see cuts in farm protection in the west in return for easier access to the industrial markets of developing countries. [Globalisation] [Protectionism]
• Belgrade prepares for Karadzic backlash
  By Neil MacDonald in Belgrade Published: July 27 2008 17:38 | Last updated: July 27 2008 17:38 Police in riot gear took up positions around the Serbian capital Belgrade on Sunday, in a show of strength aimed at preventing a violent nationalist backlash over the expected extradition of Radovan Karadzic to The Hague this week. The former Bosnian Serb political leader faces charges of genocide and other crimes at the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia over his role in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Boris Tadic, the pro-western president whose office announced Mr Karadzic’s arrest a week ago, has since received death threats, as have the chief war crimes prosecutor and key cabinet ministers, according to their spokesmen.  
  "They’re not very proud of themselves for sending someone to The Hague," said Ljiljana Smajlovic, editor in chief of Politika, a prominent daily newspaper. "This was not done out of the purest of motives. There was a nasty trade-off involved." Belgrade wants a quick pay-off with European Union accession talks, even though the other key genocide suspect – Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime army commander – remains on the run. The government was embarrassed when the EU and US responded to the Karadzic arrest with more tough demands, Ms Smajlovic said. "This is a disaster for Serbia," she said. "It’s a victory for the politics of conditionality."
• Attack of the Global Pirate Bankers
  By James S. Henry July 22, 2008
  For what is the crime of burglarizing a bank, compared with the crime of building one? --Bertolt Brecht
  The Hearing: Last week in Washington we got a rare look inside the global private banking industry, whose high purpose it is to gather up the assets of the world's wealthiest people and many of its worst villains, and shelter them from tax collectors, prosecutors, creditors, disgruntled business associates, family members and each other.
  Thursday's standing-room-only hearing on tax haven banks and tax compliance was held by the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Michigan Senator Carl Levin, a regular critic of tax havens--except when it comes to offshore leasing companies owned by US auto companies. He presented the results of his Committee's six-month investigation of two of Europe's most venerable financial institutions--LGT Group, the largest bank in Liechtenstein and the personal fiefdom of Crown Prince Hans-Adam II and the royal family, with more than $200 billion in client assets; and UBS, Switzerland's largest bank and the world's largest private wealth manager, with $1.9 trillion in client assets and nearly 84,000 employees in fifty countries, including 32,000 in the United States.
• The Future Is So Yesterday
  In the World of Tomorrow, There's a Very Familiar Feeling
  By Joel Garreau Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 20, 2008; Page M01
  ANAHEIM, Calif. But really. This is Tomorrowland? From the Disney force that convinced us humanity's future soared among the stars back in 1955 when television only had three channels and Sputnik was unheard of? That made rocketeer Wernher von Braun a household name and filled our imaginations with doughnut-shaped space stations? The future it is now presenting is a pumpkin pie that smells of cinnamon. We know because Disneyland's newest multimillion-dollar Tomorrowland attraction, the Innoventions Dream Home, is receiving its first visitor swarms this month. When you view the replica pie in the fancy oven, the cabinet next to it squirts a highly convincing aroma of Thanksgiving. Disney -- so far into our heads, hopes and dreams that it is legendarily the Mouse that built the better people trap -- is now presenting not so much the future, but the future that it thinks we want. Wander around Tomorrowland and it no longer gleams with white plastic and blue trim. No "2001." It is an antique future, a bronze future, full of things that look like astrolabes channeling Leonardo da Vinci. The future of the future is in the past? "This is an aspirational future," says Disney spokesman John J. Nicoletti. What's interesting about Tomorrowland's newest future is its focus on what doesn't change [Decline]
• Sending more troops to Afghanistan could backfire, experts say
  By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON - Barack Obama and John McCain say more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, and President Bush agrees. Deploying additional forces could backfire, however, if the United States and its allies don't devise a coherent strategy to defeat the Taliban insurgency, strengthen the Afghan government, bolster the country's economy and deprive Islamic militants of their safe haven in neighboring Pakistan. The calls for reinforcing the U.S.-led military coalition come amid the worst violence since the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, with the seven-year-old "forgotten war" in May and June claiming more U.S. dead than Iraq for the first time. Obama Friday called for beefing up the 71,000-strong U.S. and NATO contingents by at least two U.S. brigades, or roughly 7,500 troops, and pressing NATO allies to send more soldiers, as well. McCain, who'd opposed more forces, responded by saying that he'd send the three brigades U.S. commanders are requesting. Bush agreed that more forces should go, but it's unclear if he'll send them before his term ends in January.
• Rice in diplomatic race against time
  By MATTHEW LEE The Associated Press Saturday, July 26, 2008; 1:44 PM AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- In a global kick to the tape, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is grasping for diplomatic victories before the Bush administration's exit from the world stage in January. Too little, too late, say critics, as Rice and President Bush seek to cement a legacy beyond the unpopular Iraq war, which strained relations with Europe and the Arab world and made Americans a greater target of terrorists. With less than six months to go in office and unfinished business with Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan, Rice has embarked on a series of trips and is packing in an impressive number of high-level meetings in Washington.
• Former high-ranking Bush officials enjoy war profits
  Now working inside America's "shadow" spy industry, George Tenet, Richard Armitage, Cofer Black and others are cashing in big on Iraq and the war on terror.
  Editor's note: This article is adapted from Tim Shorrock's book, "Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing," published this month by Simon & Schuster and reprinted with permission.
  By Tim Shorrock May 29, 2008 | Richard L. Armitage, who served from 2001 to 2005 as Deputy Secretary of State, was a rarity in the Bush administration: an official who delighted in talking to the press. Reporters loved him for his withering criticism of the neoconservative zealots around President George W. Bush and in part because he fed them tidbits about the White House they could obtain nowhere else. His accidental disclosure to conservative columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson, was working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency remains one of the most notorious leaks of the Bush era. But perhaps because of his cozy ties to the Washington press corps and the media's obsession with Plamegate, very little has been written about Armitage's extensive business dealings. In fact, Armitage is one of the most successful capitalists in Washington. He has successfully parlayed his experience in covert operations and secret diplomacy into a thriving career as a consultant and adviser to some of the biggest players in America's Intelligence Industrial Complex -- corporations that are working at the heart of U.S. national security and profiting handsomely from it. [Privatisation] [Military-industrial complex]
• Obama wins the week, but McCain's still in the race
  By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — If conventional wisdom ruled politics, Barack Obama would be on his way to the White House after this week. He went overseas with the national news media in tow and staged a series of well choreographed scenes that were designed to make him appear "presidential" and to address the fact that many voters still consider him inexperienced and a risky choice. Heads of state shook his hand. The prime minister of Iraq welcomed part of Obama's plan to get U.S. troops out. Two hundred thousand Germans cheered him in Berlin. The French president fawned over him. That may all pay off for the Illinois Democrat. But it's July, and he shouldn't pick the White House china just yet.
• Bush and McCain Seem to Diverge in Foreign Policy
  Senator John McCain with the Dalai Lama on Friday at a private residence in Aspen, Colo. The Dalai Lama was in Aspen for a symposium on Tibetan culture.
  By ELISABETH BUMILLER Published: July 26, 2008 WASHINGTON — President Bush and Senator John McCain have long been in agreement on major elements of American foreign policy, particularly in their approach to the “axis of evil” countries of Iran and North Korea, and their commitment to staying the course in Iraq. But now the administration’s agreement to consider a “time horizon” for troop withdrawals from Iraq has moved it, at least in the public perception, in the direction of the policies of Senator Barack Obama. That has thrown Mr. McCain on the political defensive in his opposition to a timed withdrawal, Republicans in the party’s foreign party establishment say. [China confrontation] [US foreign policy]
• Cambodians Rally Around Leader Ahead of Vote
  By SETH MYDANS Published: July 26, 2008 PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A surge of patriotism has swept through Cambodia, bolstering the popularity of Prime Minister Hun Sen as the nation heads into a parliamentary election on Sunday. The country has rallied around its leader as its troops face off for a second week against Thai soldiers at a disputed 900-year-old temple on the Thai-Cambodian border. Mr. Hun Sen is expected to win overwhelmingly on Sunday, extending a 23-year rule that is already the longest of any elected leader in Southeast Asia, although that victory will owe as much to other factors, reflecting the country’s move beyond the traumatized past of its Khmer Rouge years to something approaching normalcy
• Russia 'may use Cuba to refuel nuclear bombers'·
  Plan said to be response to American missile shield
  · No reaction from Havana to newspaper report Luke Harding in Moscow The Guardian, Friday July 25 2008 Article history Russia is said to be considering the use of bases in Cuba as a refuelling point for its nuclear bombers, in a move reminiscent of the 1962 missile crisis. The move would be in retaliation for the Bush administration's plan to site a missile defence shield in Europe. Russia says America's proposal for the shield in Poland and the Czech Republic poses a direct threat to its security.
• Obama pledges to coordinate Iran policy with Israel
  By Barak Ravid Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama pledged to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Wednesday that if elected, he will coordinate his policy on Iran with Israel.
• Pakistan nervous about U.S. hints at action against militants
  By Jane Perlez Published: July 22, 2008 ISLAMABAD: Strong suggestions by the United States that it could resort to unilateral intervention against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan are generating increasing anxiety in the Pakistani press and among government officials, who warn that such an action could backfire. Over the last week, the Pakistani press has been filled with commentaries warning that U.S. attacks without Pakistan's permission would further inflame anti-American sentiment, drive more people into the camp of the militants and fatally undermine the already fragile civilian government. Privately, one senior government official said U.S. strikes would produce "chaos."
• Iran, Israel, and the risk of war
  Paul Rogers
  The cautious optimism over Washington's hesitant dialogue with Tehran is counterbalanced by growing unease that Israel is intent on a military option, says Paul Rogers 24 - 07 – 2008
  The prospect of war over Iran's nuclear plans seemed to recede in mid-July 2008 after a marked change in United States attitudes to the country. This was signalled by the decision to hold direct talks with the Islamic Republic for the first time since the revolution of 1979 and the subsequent hostage crisis that did so much to embitter relations between the two countries. The outcome of the discussions held in Paris on 19 July was disappointing to western hopes of concessions from Iran over its uranium-enrichment plans, but the fact of the meeting has been hailed as a positive step that diminishes what had seemed to be the escalating risk of armed confrontation. Between this hope and a stony reality, however, falls a shadow. For even if the momentum in Washington has moved away from the planning for a military strike against Tehran's nuclear facilities, the option of an attack by Israel is very much alive. In the complex strategic calculations of the three main state actors, therefore, the mild and provisional rapprochement between the US and Iran is only one counter that in itself does not eliminate the possibility of war (see "Israel, the United States and Iran: the tipping-point", 13 March 2008).
  The Paris dialogue may nonetheless have confirmed that the balance within the George W Bush administration has moved away from planning for war with Iran. This would be a cruel disappointment to those inside (vice-president Dick Cheney and his team) and outside (neo-conservative and other hawkish voices) the administration who have long sought to match action against Iran to the "axis of evil" rhetoric.
  A conflict involving Iran is not inevitable, but the blunt fact is that it is more likely in the next few months than at any time in the last five years. [Dissension] [Bilateral]
• Plan Would Use Antiterror Aid on Pakistani Jets
  By ERIC SCHMITT Published: July 24, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration plans to shift nearly $230 million in aid to Pakistan from counterterrorism programs to upgrading that country’s aging F-16 attack planes, which Pakistan prizes more for their contribution to its military rivalry with India than for fighting insurgents along its Afghan border [India US Pakistan]
• Ex-Advisers Warn Against Threatening to Attack Iran
  By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 23, 2008; Page A11 The Bush administration should stop talking about a military attack as an option if negotiations do not immediately halt Iran's uranium reprocessing program, two former national security advisers said yesterday. "Don't talk about 'do we bomb them now or later?' " said Brent Scowcroft, adviser to presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush, during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the negotiations between the United States and Iran. Scowcroft added that by mentioning that threat, "we legitimize the use of force . . . and may tempt the Israelis" to carry out such a mission. He said he thinks that negotiations must continue and that sanctions have had an effect on Tehran, noting that even with elevated oil prices, Iran, alone among oil producers, is having a difficult time economically. Zbigniew Brzezinski, adviser to President Jimmy Carter, described the Bush administration's policy of maintaining the option of military action as "counterproductive."
• The Face of Evil
  By Richard Holbrooke Wednesday, July 23, 2008; Page A15 Standing with Slobodan Milosevic on the veranda of a government hunting lodge outside Belgrade, I saw two men in the distance. They got out of their twin Mercedeses and, in the fading light, started toward us. I felt a jolt go through my body; they were unmistakable. Ratko Mladic in combat fatigues, stocky, walking as though through a muddy field; and Radovan Karadzic, taller, wearing a suit, with his wild, but carefully coiffed, shock of white hair. The capture of Karadzic on Monday took me back to a long night of confrontation, drama and negotiations almost 13 years ago -- the only time I ever met him. It was 5 p.m. on Sept. 13, 1995, the height of the war in Bosnia. Finally, after years of weak Western and U.N. response to Serb aggression and ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats in Bosnia, U.S.-led NATO bombing had put the Serbs on the defensive. Our small diplomatic negotiating team -- which included then-Lt. Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Christopher Hill (now the senior U.S. envoy to North Korea) -- was in Belgrade for the fifth time, trying to end a war that had already taken the lives of nearly 300,000 people.
• Maintaining the American Strategic Advantage
  by Bruce Berkowitz July 2008
  Bruce Berkowitz is author of Strategic Advantage: Challengers, Competitors, and Threats to America’s Future (Georgetown University Press, due out Sept. 1, 2008). He is also a contributing editor to FPRI’s Orbis. On September 9, he will deliver a private dinner briefing for FPRI’s Platinum Level Partners drawing on his new book. A complimentary copy will be awarded to each Platinum Partner at the dinner, to be held at the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia. For details, contact Alan Luxenberg at 215-732-3774, ext. 105. Since the end of the Cold War, officials and scholars alike have searched for an adversary or problem with foreign origins to serve as an organizing concept for U.S. national security the way the Soviet threat did during the Cold War. Yet every time we think that we have found the “main enemy” (to borrow the Soviets’ label for the United States) or the most pressing problem imaginable, we have encountered another threat, competitor, or problem that seems at least as challenging or as dire.
  The United States must concentrate on building capabilities in those dimensions of power in which we enjoys special strengths because of the American culture and our past investments, and which other countries cannot copy easily. They include, for example:
  * A society that supports more military spending than our competitors and a culture that supports a professional military service in which many Americans choose to make careers. [Military-industrial complex] [Decline]
• American Asia Policy and the American Election
  By Lowell Dittmer
  Foreign Policy Research Institute, Jul. 18 2008 According to conventional wisdom, American elections are not generally won in foreign policy debates; the electorate is assumed to be primarily preoccupied with domestic political issues. Yet in some cases, particularly when foreign affairs clearly impinge upon people's interests, foreign affairs have played a pivotal role--for example, the 1992 election targeting the "butchers of Beijing."
  To cope with North Korea, Beijing in 2003 convened the six-party talks, which Washington welcomed in preference to bilateral U.S.-DPRK negotiations.
  North Korea had been central to U.S. nonproliferation efforts since the early 1990s, but the U.S. became reengaged with the issue in 2002, when the administration precipitated a decisive break from Clinton's Agreed Framework (based on the claim that Pyongyang had been secretly engaged in weapons development through a parallel HEU program) and launched its more uncompromising drive for complete verifiable irreversible dismantlement (CVID). While the Kim Dae Jung administration had attempted (with Clinton's support) to eliminate Pyongyang's perceived need for nuclearization with a "sunshine" policy, the Bush administration spurned the use of such carrots but soon found itself equally unable to resort to sticks. After months of escalating verbal invective between Kim Jong-Il and Bush, Beijing's convention of six-party talks was welcomed by all parties. [China confrontation] [US NK policy] [Pressure] [Bilateral]
• Expectations low as Doha talks begin
  By Alan Beattie in Geneva Published: July 21 2008 19:10 | Last updated: July 21 2008 19:10 A week of tense trade talks started on Monday in Geneva with most sides professing willingness to compromise but saying that others had to take the lead. The meeting, which brings together several dozen ministers in the so-called Doha round of talks, represents a gamble by Pascal Lamy, the World Trade Organisation’s director-general, that big negotiating divisions can be bridged in a few days. Similar meetings in the previous two years ended in acrimonious collapse.
• Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss
  By KIM SEVERSON Published: July 22, 2008 Eating locally raised food is a growing trend. But who has time to get to the farmer’s market, let alone plant a garden? That is where Trevor Paque comes in. For a fee, Mr. Paque, who lives in San Francisco, will build an organic garden in your backyard, weed it weekly and even harvest the bounty, gently placing a box of vegetables on the back porch when he leaves.
  Call them the lazy locavores — city dwellers who insist on eating food grown close to home but have no inclination to get their hands dirty. Mr. Paque is typical of a new breed of business owner serving their needs. [Green] [Food miles]
• A New Openness to Talks With That ‘Axis of Evil’
  By HELENE COOPER Published: July 22, 2008 WASHINGTON — When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets her North Korean counterpart, Pak Ui-chun, in Singapore this week, it will be the first substantive high-level meeting between Washington and the North since Madeleine K. Albright visited North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, during the waning months of the Clinton administration. After a weekend in which the Bush administration sent a top State Department official to a meeting in Geneva with an Iranian official, the North Korea meeting may well amount to last rites for the "axis of evil," the one that President Bush said in 2002 was "arming to threaten the peace of the world." The Bush administration began long ago to step down from its vow not to talk to America’s foes. But its recent concessions to Iran and North Korea — and to Iraq, another charter member of the axis — have further muddled the old message. [Bilateral]
• U.S. conservatives scramble to find a new direction
  By Patricia Cohen Published: July 20, 2008
  Almost anything can happen in an election year, but among conservatives, almost everyone seems to agree that no matter who captures the White House in November, the movement that has ruled the Republican Party since the 1960s and mostly dominated American politics since 1980 has lost its way. Across the spectrum of the right, writers and thinkers have turned their relentless analysis inward, a kind of political EST seminar aimed at self-transformation. [Thinktanks] [Neocon]
• Squandered oil wealth leaves Nigeria in dark age
  By Tume Ahemba Reuters Published: July 21, 2008
  LAGOS: With oil prices at record highs, government coffers in the world's eighth biggest oil exporter are swollen to unprecedented levels. Yet the vast majority of Nigeria's 140 million people live in no better conditions than their neighbours in West Africa, the least developed region of the world's poorest continent. The same is true of many of Africa's major oil producers -- including Angola, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Chad -- but Nigeria's sheer size and 2-million-barrel-per-day output make the poverty-wealth contrasts more striking. Nigeria has earned the equivalent in today's terms of nearly $1.2 trillion from oil production over the past four decades, the sort of money that enabled oil-producing Gulf states like Qatar to develop some of the strongest economies in the Arab world. [Development] [Globalisation]
• Dr Henry Kissinger joins Lateline
  Print Email Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 25/06/2008 Reporter: Leigh Sales
  Dr Henry Kissinger was US secretary of state and national security advisor during the Nixon and Ford administrations. More recently, he has advised the Bush administration on the war in Iraq and endorsed John McCain for the presidency. Dr Kissinger joined Lateline from New York. Transcript [NPT] [US foreign policy]
• The WTO's Raw Deal on Services
  Walden Bello | July 17, 2008
  Desperate to clinch a new global trade deal, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy is planning to convene a "mini-ministerial" meeting in the third week of July. The aim of the meeting is to come up with agreements to liberalize trade in agriculture, industry, and services. These sectors have been the focus of the so-called Doha Round of WTO negotiations that have dragged on since 2001. Developing country governments have been rightly concerned about agreeing to texts that promise illusory reductions in agricultural subsidies in the European Union and United States and require them to cut their industrial tariffs proportionally more than the developed countries. They should also not allow themselves to be snookered into a bad agreement on services, which include such vital activities as the provision of water, energy, and financial intermediation.
  Insistence on Services While global attention has focused on the talks on agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs, the United States and EU have made it clear that they will not settle for a trade package that does not include services. [Services] [Globalisation]
• Is Bush going out with 'a whimper'?
  Story | Race to the bottom: Bush's disapproval rating beats Nixon's By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The White House wants the American public to think it's on the rebound, scoring important triumphs in Iraq and North Korea and on domestic spying while taking tough stands on oil drilling and relief for homeowners. The White House, the experts and the polls say, however, is wrong. President Bush hasn't begun a comeback. "All this is pretty much a lot of noise. He's going out with a whimper," said Erwin Hargrove, presidential scholar at Vanderbilt University and the author of "The Effective President."
  Foreign policy is probably his best bet, since, as he showed with North Korea, he can effect change more quickly. And bold steps are often likely to get at least tacit political support, Blessing said, if only because "no senator or congressman wants to go home and appear weak." [US NK Policy]
• Is this the last stand for globalisation?
  Poor nations derailed the last WTO deal. Now economic turmoil means the rich countries could kill it off for the foreseeable future, writes Heather Stewart Heather Stewart The Observer, Sunday July 20, 2008 With America reeling from the worst financial crisis for half a century, poor consumers struggling to afford food, and China's appetite for raw materials forcing up the cost of oil, now may not seem the best moment for a new leap towards globalisation. Yet as trade ministers gather at the HQ of the World Trade Organisation on the shores of Lake Geneva this weekend, in a last attempt to resuscitate the seven-year-old Doha round of WTO talks, there is a powerful sense of now or never. [Globalisation] [Protectionism]
• Relationship Between US, Northeast Asia
  A new book touches upon emerging super power China as well as nationalism among major players in Northeast Asia. Above, the top photo shows fireworks rehearsal at Olympic National Stadium, known as Bird's Nest, venue for 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony on Aug. 8. The photo below shows Koreans protesting aginst Japan's announced measure to include in Japanese teaching manuals that students learn about Japan's claims to Dokdo islets. / AP-Yonhap By Kim Ji-soo Staff Reporter The Beijing Olympics is several weeks away. The dispute between Seoul and Tokyo over rocky islets has flared once again. Candlelights had been burning for months on the streets of Seoul. The Northeast Asian region is a compelling picture of change and new development these days. A book that carries a collection of works dealing with the region is out to give the readers some views to consider.
  ``The United States and Northeast Asia: Debates, Issues, and New Order'' (eds. G. John Ikenberry and Chung-in Moon, Lanham, Md and Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) provides a broad view of the dynamics of change in Northeast Asia. [China confrontation] [Decline] [US foreign policy]
• Too Big to Fail?
  By PETER S. GOODMAN Published: July 20, 2008 IN the narrative that has governed American commercial life for the last quarter-century, saving companies from their own mistakes was not supposed to be part of the government’s job description. Economic policy makers in the United States took swaggering pride in the cutthroat but lucrative form of capitalism that was supposedly indigenous to their frontier nation.
  Through this uniquely American lens, saving businesses from collapse was the sort of thing that happened on other shores, where sentimental commitments to social welfare trumped sharp-edged competition. Weak-kneed European and Asian leaders were too frightened to endure the animal instincts of a real market, the story went. So they intervened time and again, using government largess to lift inefficient firms to safety, sparing jobs and limiting pain but keeping their economies from reaching full potential. The central banks of China and Japan are on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Fannie’s and Freddie’s bonds — debts they took on assuming that the two companies enjoyed the backing of the American government, argues Brad Setser, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations. Commercial banks from South Korea to Sweden hold investments linked to American   [Exceptionalism] [Decline]
• U.S. Talks With Iran Exemplify Bush's New Approaches
  In a Matter of Days, Administration Announces Change of Tactics Toward Onetime 'Axis of Evil' By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 20, 2008; Page A04 WACO, Tex., July 19 -- With his moves last week involving Iraq, Iran and North Korea, President Bush accelerated a shift toward centrist foreign policies, a change that has cheered Democrats, angered some Republicans and roiled the presidential campaign. Bush sent his first high-level emissary to sit in on nuclear talks with Iran, which ended without agreement Saturday. Also in the past two days, the president agreed for the first time to set a "time horizon" for withdrawing troops from Iraq, and authorized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to join North Korean diplomats at six-party talks about ending that country's nuclear weapons program.   [Bilateral]
• In a Shift, U.S. Joins Nuclear Talks With Iran
  By ELAINE SCIOLINO Published: July 20, 2008 GENEVA — International talks on Iran’s nuclear ambitions ended in deadlock on Saturday, despite the Bush administration’s decision to reverse policy and send a senior American official to the table for the first time.
  The presence of William J. Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, represented one of the most important encounters between Iran and the United States since relations were severed after Iran’s seizure of the American Embassy in 1979. [Bilateral]
• Development: US fails to measure up on 'human index'
  · Nation slumps from 2nd to 12th in global table · Richest fifth take home $168,000, poorest $11,000 Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy. These are some of the startling conclusions from a major new report which attempts to explain why the world's number-one economy has slipped to 12th place - from 2nd in 1990- in terms of human development. The American Human Development Report, which applies rankings of health, education and income to the US, paints a surprising picture of a country that spends well over $5bn each day on healthcare - more per person than any other country. [Decline]
• Tensions seen boosting U.S. missile defense exports
  Tue Jul 15, 2008 7: By Jim Wolf FARNBOROUGH (Reuters) - Overseas sales of the U.S. Army's core missile defense system appear set to boom, spurred by tensions surrounding Iran, North Korea and other regional disputes. Poland, Taiwan, Kuwait, Turkey, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among countries that could spin off billions of dollars in related revenue over the next five years, according to Raytheon Co (RTN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the army's primary contractor for the Patriot air and missile defence system. Raytheon Chief Executive Bill Swanson said in April that sales could be in the "big billions" by 2013 or 2014 for what the company calls the world's premier system of its kind. The name "Patriot" is an acronym of Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept Of Target. Currently, one version or another is used by the U.S. Army and partners in 10 countries: Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Taiwan and South Korea, which became the latest addition last year.
  The company said Tuesday it had received more than $200 million in its latest wave of Patriot-related contracts, including deals involving Kuwait, South Korea and the U.S. Army [Arms sales] [military-industrial complex]
• Obama, Iraq and Afghanistan
  By Tom Hayden
  July 15, 2008 Any proposal to transfer American troops from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan is sure to cause debate and questions among peace activists and rank-and-file Democrats. The proposal potentially represents a wider quagmire for the US government and military.
  Michael Scheuer, the former CIA official once charged with tracking down Osama bin Laden, suggests that the American delusion is that "by establishing a minority-dominated semi-secular, pro-Indian government [in Kabul], we would neither threaten the identity nor raise the ire of the Pashtun tribes nor endanger Pakistan's national security." In his recent book, Marching Towards Hell, Scheuer wrote that "for the United States, the war in Afghanistan has been lost. By failing to recognize that the only achievable US mission in Afghanistan was to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their leaders and get out, Washington is now faced with fighting a protracted and growing insurgency. The only upside of this coming defeat is that it is a debacle of our own making. We are not being defeated by our enemies; we are in the midst of defeating ourselves."
  The beginning of an alternative may require unfreezing American diplomacy towards Iran and considering a "grand bargain" instead. Teheran is the single power, according to CIA director Deutch, that could destabilize the US withdrawal from Iraq. It happens that they were America's ally against Afghanistan not so long ago. The Iranians have lost thousands of police and soldiers themselves in a border war against Afghan drug lords. As William Polk wrote in Violent Politics, "ironically, the only effective deterrent to the trade is Iran." In exchange for security guarantees against a US-directed regime change, Iran may be willing to discuss cooperation with the "Great Satan" to stabilize its borders with Iraq and Afghanistan. Improbable? That depends on whether one thinks the alternative is unthinkable.
  Only a short time ago, the United States was supporting the jihadists in the same tribal areas as they ventured to destroy the Soviet occupation. In the same years, the United States was hosting the Taliban for talks on a possible oil pipeline across Afghanistan. Since twists and turns seem to be the only pattern in divide-and-conquer strategies, it is possible that Obama thinks being tough towards Afghanistan and Pakistan is a defensive cover for withdrawing from Iraq, and he later will follow up with unspecified diplomacy after he takes office. But history shows that creeping escalations create a momentum and constituency of their own. Obama might get lucky, lower the level of the visible wars and embrace a diplomatic offensive. But North and South Waziristan could be his Bay of Pigs.
  To borrow a popular phrase of the season, ending one war Iraq to start two more in Afghanistan and Pakistan seems to be a dumb idea. [India US]
• Has the 'Surge' in Iraq Worked?
  Immanuel Wallerstein
  Commentary No. 237, July 15, 2008 In 2006, things seemed to be going badly for the U.S. military efforts in Iraq. The Iraq war became a top issue in the 2006 Congressional elections in the United States. It is generally agreed that the Republicans did poorly in those elections, largely because the U.S. electorate had become disillusioned with the viability and therefore the worthwhileness of the U.S. invasion. On December 11, 2006, a stellar bi-partisan committee of Establishment figures headed by James A. Baker and Lee Hamilton issued a report calling for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops and direct discussions with Iran and Syria about all outstanding issues in the Middle East. Despite very wide political support for the Baker-Hamilton recommendations, President Bush decided on a quite different response to the faltering military situation, a response that has come to be called the "surge." Basically, the surge strategy was not to withdraw troops but to increase troops, and to seek in various ways to reduce radically the violence both against U.S. troops and against Iraqis. Now, some eighteen months later, the Bush regime and Republican candidate John McCain are hailing the success of the surge
  I could go on - about Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, the Gulf states. The fact is that the United States is decidedly weaker everywhere in the Middle East in the eighteen months since the surge began. Has it not been in part, maybe in large part, precisely because of the surge? The Middle East today is like a large geopolitical balloon. If you squeeze it at one point, the air will simply displace itself to another point. And the balloon is getting more fragile all the time. It is on the verge of bursting. [Decline]
• Afghanistan: state of siege
  Paul Rogers
  A regroupment of the Taliban and al-Qaida in the Pakistani borderlands is bringing the war closer to Kabul. 10 - 07 - 2008 On 7 July 2008 a suicide-bomber detonated a large car-bomb at the gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing fifty-four people and injuring more than 140. The embassy stands in one of the most secure parts of Afghanistan's capital, yet this did not protect it from what security forces described as the worst bombing in the city since the termination of the Taliban regime in November 2001. Taliban sources denied that the movement was responsible, while Afghan sources implied (albeit without supporting evidence) a Pakistani intelligence connection.
• Pakistan’s American Problem
  Zia Mian | July 9, 2008
  The United States is struggling with Pakistan. The problem is manifold, encompassing a resurgent al-Qaeda, a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan with bases in Pakistan, and Islamist militancy in Pakistan’s tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province. But most damaging of all for the United States is that people in Pakistan overwhelming see the United States as the problem.
• Why Not?
  Uri Avnery
  IF YOU want to understand the policy of a country, look at the map - as Napoleon recommended. Anyone who wants to guess whether Israel and/or the United States are going to attack Iran should look at the map of the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Through this narrow waterway, only 34 km wide, pass the ships that carry between a fifth and a third of the world's oil, including that from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.
  THE INEVITABLE reaction to the bombing of Iran will be the blocking of this Strait. That should have been self-evident even without the explicit declaration by one of Iran's highest ranking generals a few days ago. Iran dominates the whole length of the Strait. They can seal it hermetically with their missiles and artillery, both land based and naval. If that happens, the price of oil will skyrocket - far beyond the 200 dollars-per-barrel that pessimists dread now. That will cause a chain reaction: a world-wide depression, the collapse of whole industries and a catastrophic rise in unemployment in America, Europe and Japan.
  ON THE basis of all these considerations, I dare to predict that there will be no military attack on Iran this year - not by the Americans, not by the Israelis
  President Bush is about to end his career in disgrace. The same fate is waiting impatiently for Ehud Olmert. For politicians of this kind, it is easy to be tempted by a last adventure, a last chance for a decent place in history after all. All the same, I stick to my prognosis: it will not happen.
• In ’06 Bomb Plot Trial, a Question of Imminence
  By ELAINE SCIOLINO Published: July 15, 2008 LONDON — When Scotland Yard disrupted what it called a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners with liquid explosives in August 2006, officials in Britain and the United States said the deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11 had been averted.
  Heathrow Airport near London was thrown into chaos in August 2006 after authorities said they had disrupted a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners. Air traffic on two continents was paralyzed, and passengers around the world were permanently barred from carrying most liquids onto planes. Terrorism alert levels in both countries were raised. There were claims by American officials that the suspected scheme resembled the work of Al Qaeda. Now, as the three-month trial of eight defendants draws to a close, prosecutors indeed have presented evidence of meticulous planning, with experiments on a new kind of bomb, research into plane schedules, videos threatening martyrdom, an apartment purchased for more than $270,000 in cash and a mysterious outsider with strong ties to Pakistan. But the testimony has shown little evidence that the suspects were prepared to strike immediately, or of any link to Al Qaeda — potential vulnerabilities in the case that several defendants have tried to capitalize on in court. Three defendants pleaded guilty to intent to cause explosions, the judge announced Monday, in what was apparently an attempt to convince the jury that their intention was not to commit mass murder, as prosecutors alleged. Instead they said they had planned a series of small, nonfatal blasts — "publicity stunts," one defendant said — to protest British and American foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. The three men, and two others, also pleaded guilty to conspiring to cause a public nuisance by publishing videos threatening suicide bomb attacks.
• Conservative Think Tank AEI Names a New Leader
  By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 15, 2008; Page A03 For the first time in more than two decades, one of the leading institutions in the conservative movement will have new leadership. The American Enterprise Institute announced yesterday that Arthur C. Brooks, a professor of business and government policy at Syracuse University, will replace Christopher DeMuth as president on Jan. 1. Brooks, 44, holds a doctorate from the Rand Graduate School and has written extensively about such topics as happiness, social entrepreneurship, and other issues connecting politics, culture and economics. His appointment brings a new generation of leadership to the AEI, which has been one of the favorite think tanks of the current administration. Top AEI scholars have been strong supporters of the Iraq and the troop "surge," though its specialists have criticized many of the second-term Bush policies in foreign policy, particularly relating to North Korea. The think tank has generally been in favor of free markets and a strong national defense. [Thinktanks]
• Older Americans May Be Happier Than Younger Ones
  By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 14, 2008; Page A04 Many times in science, research studies point in conflicting directions. Part of the challenge -- and the fun -- of watching science is to try to sort out lines of intersecting evidence hidden amid a welter of confusing data. In recent months, however, several studies have produced a stream of evidence that mostly points in the same direction, and also happens to overturn one of the most stubborn American stereotypes: the belief that this is a land whose gifts, charms and joys flow mostly to young people. The studies show that when you check on how happy people are at various ages, the elderly generally come out ahead. [Decline]
• 9 Americans Die in Afghan Attack
  By CARLOTTA GALL Published: July 14, 2008 KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents carried out a bold assault on a remote base near the border with Pakistan on Sunday, NATO reported, and a senior American military official said nine American soldiers were killed. The New York Times The attack, the worst against Americans in Afghanistan in three years, illustrated the growing threat of Taliban militants and their associates, who in recent months have made Afghanistan a far deadlier war zone for American-led forces than Iraq.
• The pawns in the United States’ anti-China policy
  Selig Harrison, Director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy
  On June 19, after three years of deadlocked negotiations, Japan backed down in its dispute with China over contested seabed natural gas deposits in the East China Sea. China will continue to develop the Chunxiao (Shirakaba) deposits under its own flag and its own managerial control. Japanese companies will join in their development and share in the profits, but as junior partners. On June 21, it was China that swallowed its pride, permitting the 4,600-ton Japanese destroyer Sazanami to land at the Zhanjiang naval base for a four-day visit. This was the first port call by a Japanese warship in China since World War II. I wonder how the Japanese Foreign Minister explained the Sazanami port call when he met at Kyoto on June 25 with his U.S. and Australian counterparts to discuss a much-hyped, anti-China military containment strategy. No doubt he dismissed it as nothing more than a humanitarian earthquake-relief mission. But the port call, together with the seabed gas compromise, have made crystal clear that Japan will be nothing more than a pro-forma partner in the U.S.-led anti-China strategy.
  To be sure, there is still a powerful right wing in Japan, led most recently by Abe, that continues to emphasize the military threat posed to Japan by China and North Korea. But the real reason for this emphasis on the Chinese and North Korean threats is to justify a Japanese nuclear weapons capability that the rightists want for global, not regional reasons. If Japan does become a nuclear weapons state, it will be to claim a bigger voice in world affairs in partnership with Beijing, not to join with the United States in opposition to Beijing.
  The Pentagon’s inclusion of India in the concept of an Asian anti-China coalition exaggerates New Delhi’s willingness to position itself against Beijing, but has limited validity with respect to naval cooperation. [China confrontation] [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation] [Quadrille]
• The Betancourt Blockbuster
  Sunday, July 13, 2008 Thanks to the LA Times for reminding us of the difference between traditional print media and the Internet... ...after all, you can't wipe your ass with a blog. That was my first thought as I opened my Sunday LAT and discovered that a piece of entertainment writing had escaped its natural habitat in the Calendar section and was instead lurking on page A4 of what was once known as the news section. There, Betancourt's tale captivates, an article by Patrick McDonnell and Chris Kraul informs us, “The saga of [Ingrid Betancourt]...is generating major media interest in the United States...Hollywood sees box office potential in Betancourt's ordeal...” ...Betancourt's tale “has it all,” said Jim McNamara, chairman of Miami-based Panamax films...”Her captors are ugly, ugly villains out of central casting...” Betancourt is represented by CAA and her “first decision will be whether to agree to co-operate on a “cheap TV movie that's out in two months” or do a comprehensive book and film deal...”She's holding all the cards”. With my usual corrosive cynicism, I wonder if the photoplay will include dramatic scenes of FARC fattening Betancourt up with food and medical care in anticipation of her negotiated release; the months of talks between European intermediaries and FARC, allegedly culminating in payment of a $20 million ransom; or indications that Colombia's President Uribe hijacked the release helicopters and spun the whole event as a rescue with the help of the United States and a credulous media. [Media]
• Kennan Had a Vision. Things Aren't So Clear Now.
  By Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier
  Sunday, July 13, 2008; Page B03
  James Monroe had one, and so should we. That seems to be the theory behind the rampant and premature speculation among national security wonks about what kind of new doctrine President Obama or President McCain would use to guide U.S. foreign policy. But let's not get carried away thinking about what a McCain or Obama doctrine might be. In today's complex world, a president doesn't need to have a one-size-fits-all template for handling foreign affairs. In fact, the next president would be better off without one.
  Today, however, the Bush doctrine is in tatters: Reeling from Iraq, abandoned even by many conservatives, the administration is adopting 11th-hour positions that are far from doctrinaire on issues including China, Iran and North Korea. The new policies are more ad hoc, embracing multilateral approaches and tailoring solutions to specific challenges -- something suspiciously like the Clinton approach Bush used to sneer at.
• A Delicate Balance
  By Steven Pearlstein Friday, July 11, 2008; Page D01 You know something's up when both the secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve give speeches calling for a new mechanism to allow them to manage the orderly liquidation of a major financial institution.
  You have a sense that things are getting desperate when General Motors has to offer six-year loans at zero-percent interest to unload its gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs, and people openly speculate about how long it will be before the automaker runs out of cash. And you can feel the foundation shaking under Wall Street when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have to pay three-quarters of a percentage point more to borrow money than the U.S. Treasury, which implicitly guarantees their debt, and top government officials feel compelled to reaffirm their support.
  But even the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal acknowledged yesterday that this wee bit of socialism might be the most effective and least costly way to keep the mortgage market functioning and prevent a meltdown in global credit markets. A financial crisis is not a morality play. What matters most isn't the precedents that are set, the amount of taxpayer money that's implicated or whether people are made to suffer fully for their financial misjudgments. In the end, what matters most is that we get through it as quickly as possible with an economy and a financial system intact.
• A last throw of the dice ...?
  By Bob Rigg
  Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing. When President George W Bush was sworn in as US president in the first year of a new millennium and a new century, the United States appeared to be at the height of its powers - astride the world stage like a colossus. Some time elapsed before it was realized that Bush had entrusted his foreign policy to a group of mostly unelected conservative ideologues whose world views had been shaped during the Cold War. Playing on the imperial associations of the Roman and British empires, they aimed to lay the foundations for a century of unbroken American political, military, and economic pre-eminence to be known as "Pax Americana". [Decline]
• Barack Obama calls for tougher Iran sanctions after missile tests
  The US Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, called for tighter sanctions on Iran today after it fired nine test missiles that were capable of hitting American and Israeli bases.
• U.S. Finds It's Getting Crowded Out There
  Dominance in Space Slips as Other Nations Step Up Efforts
  By Marc Kaufman Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 9, 2008; Page A01 China plans to conduct its first spacewalk in October. The European Space Agency is building a roving robot to land on Mars. India recently launched a record 10 satellites into space on a single rocket.
  Space, like Earth below, is globalizing. And as it does, America's long-held superiority in exploring, exploiting and commercializing "the final frontier" is slipping away, many experts believe. Although the United States remains dominant in most space-related fields -- and owns half the military satellites currently orbiting Earth -- experts say the nation's superiority is diminishing, and many other nations are expanding their civilian and commercial space capabilities at a far faster pace.
  Six separate nations and the European Space Agency are now capable of sending sophisticated satellites and spacecraft into orbit -- and more are on the way. New rockets, satellites and spacecraft are being planned to carry Chinese, Russian, European and Indian astronauts to the moon, to turn Israel into a center for launching minuscule "nanosatellites," and to allow Japan and the Europeans to explore the solar system and beyond with unmanned probes as sophisticated as NASA's.
  Following China's lead, India has announced ambitious plans for a manned space program,
• Big Oil's 'secret' out of Iraq's closet
  By Pepe Escobar
  NEW YORK - It is not about the "war on terror". It is not about weapons of mass destruction. It is not about "freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people", or to the "Afghan people". It is not about "Islamofascism". It is not about a Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Middle East to Central Asia. New evidence shows once again both George W Bush administration wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq - above all are about oil and gas.
  Thus, dead on arrival, lay TAP, the (invisible) star of the "good" Afghan war, as Democratic senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama now sees it. Washington's plan has always been to seduce Nyazov to provide Turkmenistan gas to the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, and then to TAP. This was part of a US grand strategy of a "Greater Central Asia" centered on Afghanistan and India. Bush/Cheney will never give up. But India will go ahead with the Iranian pipeline. And Turkmenistan is selling all its surplus gas to Russia. Who needs a $7.6 billion, 1,600-kilometer steel serpent in a war zone? [Energy] [Afghanistan]
• 'Iran leaks reflect conflict in US administration'
  Jul 7, 2008 0:38 | Updated Jul 7, 2008 22:19 By HERB KEINON, YAAKOV KATZ AND ETGAR LEFKOVITZ The recent spate of leaks and reports from Washington about whether Israel will, or should, take military action against Iran, and what that would mean for the US, is a reflection of deep divisions on the matter inside the Bush administration, Israeli diplomatic and defense officials said Sunday. Slideshow: Pictures of the week The officials said that the two sides of the argument, the "hawkish camp," led by US Vice President Dick Cheney, and the "dovish camp," led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, are leaking assessments about Israeli intent to further their own agendas, and in this regard using Israel as a "pawn" in their own political battles. [Dissension]
• N.C. Senator's Hard-Line Conservatism Helped Craft Republican Social Agenda
  By Bart Barnes and Matt Schudel Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, July 5, 2008; A01 Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican senator whose uncompromising conservatism made him one of America's leading crusaders against communism, liberalism, tax increases, abortion, homosexuality, affirmative action and court-ordered busing to integrate schools, died yesterday at Mayview Convalescent Center in Raleigh, N.C. He was 86.
  Helms was a shrewd and powerful politician who won election to five terms in the Senate, beginning in 1972. Sometimes called the patron saint of the new right, he developed a national following and helped set the nation's conservative social agenda. He was a superb political organizer and fundraiser whose early support for Ronald Reagan helped secure a Republican ascendancy that has lasted more than 25 years.
• Developmental and Cultural Nationalisms in Historical Perspective
  Radhika Desai
  This is the first of a two article series on developmental and cultural nationalism. The articles by Radhika Desai and Laura Hein are both substantially excerpted versions of essays that form part of a special issue of Third World Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 3, 2008, pp 397 – 428. Other essays in the collection discuss China, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and the Middle East.
  It is, prima facie, surprising, if not astounding, that the literature on nationalism has focused so exclusively on culture, leaving out of account the vast literature on national economic development and the evolution of capitalism on a world scale,4 even though a (arguably the) central aspect of nationhood has always been one or another sort of economic development domestically and its deployment and management in international activity abroad.
  The inability of the USA and its allies to defeat fascism without an alliance with communism meant that the USA was able to emerge as the pre-eminent power in the capitalist world after the Second World War only at the cost of shrinking its total size, conceding important parts of the world to communism. At the same time both the USA and the USSR had an interest in sponsoring decolonisation. The combined result was the 1945 settlement creating the United Nations and sponsoring the decolonisation which would swell its membership from 51 in 1945 to 99 in 1960, the high point of decolonisation (and 192 today), generalising the system of nation-states across the globe. Of course, although the UN’s twin founding conceptions of sovereign equality and non-intervention—the placing of the most powerful nation-states on a legal par with the least powerful and the renunciation of the sovereign right to go to war—were never fully realized, the new international order signi?ed critical limits on imperial power. [Nationalism] [Making] [Development]
• Toward A New Cold War?
  Conn Hallinan
  Military alliances are always sold as things that produce security. In practice they tend to do the opposite.
  But politics is much like physics: for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. In this case the most important reaction is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an organization that embraces one quarter of the world’s population, from Eastern Europe to North Asia, from the Arctic to the vast steppes and mountain ranges of Central Asia.
  SCO is, in the words of a Financial Times editorial, “everything that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger—who sought to keep Russia and China apart—tried to prevent.”
  But, according to Bhadrakumar, the Central Asian part of the U.S. strategy is not likely to be very successful, with the possible exception of Turkmenistan. With the U.S. deeply mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, he says, “U.S. stock is very low” in the region. Washington appears to have had more success with India, but New Delhi is clearly of two minds about SCO. On one hand, many Indians are nervous about the growing power of China. On the other, India desperately needs the energy resources of Central Asia. India will probably try to chart a middle course, keeping itself free of political alliances, but making sure it doesn’t do anything that might disrupt the flow of gas and oil to its growing industries. For instance, New Delhi sharply rejected the Bush Administration’s efforts to halt a pipeline deal between India and Iran. [SCO] [Russia China US] [Quadrille]
• Beyond the Hub-and-Spoke Security System in East Asia: Australian and American Perspectives on East Asian Regionalism
  Hamish McDonald Hamish McDonald, in a far-reaching examination of the shifting geopolitical sands emerging from the six-party talks on North Korea-US security issues, offers a post-hegemonic vision of a new region-centered order in East Asia. Envisaging a region in which a China- or China-Japan centric structure emerges, it is premised on a withdrawal of American military force as the geopolitical core of coastal East Asia to a still powerful military position centered on Guam. But can the US-North Korea agreement hold, and is such a strategic withdrawal in fact in the cards? Is the predominance of Condoleezza Rice's State Department the future of US global policy? Can China and Japan work out a modus vivendi that accommodates both the two major Asian powers and lesser regional powers? Time will tell. MS
• Pumping Up the Anxiety
  By Dan Froomkin
  Special to washingtonpost.com Thursday, July 3, 2008; 1:37 PM It's not clear what was going through President Bush's head yesterday morning, but his words certainly didn't dampen the growing speculation that the U.S. -- or Israel -- is planning to attack Iran before January. The words were familiar, as Bush repeated yet again that his preference is to address the Iranian nuclear threat diplomatically but that, as always, " all options are on the table." It's the context that's key.
• Iraq task, Iran risk
  Paul Rogers
  The decisions taken by the United States and Israel over the next four months will influence events in the middle east for the next four years and beyond, says Paul Rogers 3 - 07 - 2008 The architects of the "war on terror" in the George W Bush administration will soon be leaving office. But the four months until the United States presidential election on 4 November 2008 could be momentous. In Iraq and Iran, what happens in the next four months - or does not happen - will shape events in the next four years and even beyond (see "Washington's choice: subdue Iran, secure Iraq", 12 June 2008).
  This series of columns has consistently argued that the primary purpose of the termination of the Saddam Hussein regime was less to gain control of Iraq's oil reserves, even if they were around four times the size of US domestic reserves; rather, it was the location of Iraq in a region containing nearly two-thirds of all of the world's oil that was more significant (see, for example, "Iraq's danger signals", 13 December 2007). Nonetheless, the manner in which Iraq's oil is coming under external control does begin to give some credence to those who claim a more direct connection between Iraq's oil and the decision to go to war. It is troubling, then - a matter of concern to those in Israel and Washington who seek to resolve the Iran issue by force - that Obama is ahead of John McCain in the opinion polls. Perhaps, in such uncertain and unpredictable circumstances, now is the time to pre-empt Iranian nuclear developments - whatever the costs - rather than wait for an Obama victory and the nightmare prospect of talking to the enemy?
• Preparing the Battlefield
  The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.
  by Seymour M. Hersh
  July 7, 2008 Text Size: Operations outside the knowledge and control of commanders have eroded “the coherence of military strategy,” one general says. Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.
  Clandestine operations against Iran are not new [Terrorism] [Double standards]
• Why are there so many plane crashes in Iran?
  By Ben Leffell, www.medialine.org for eTurboNews | Jul 01, 2008 Over the last several years boarding a domestic flight in Iran has become like playing Russian roulette. Since 2002 there have been nine fatal air crashes, with as many 302 killed in a single flight, and a combined death toll of nearly 700. Some of these flights were military transports, while some were commercial flights with soldiers or Revolutionary Guardsmen on board, and others purely commercial. Each of these flights was in Iranian air space, by no means hostile territory. So who or what is to blame for these tragic endings to seemingly regular flights? [Sanctions] [Terrorism]
• Food crisis deepens as countries restrict exports
  By Keith Bradsher and Andrew Martin Monday, June 30, 2008 BANGKOK: At least 29 countries have sharply curbed food exports in recent months to ensure that their people have enough to eat, at affordable prices. When it comes to rice, India, Vietnam, China and 11 other countries have limited or banned exports. Fifteen countries, including Pakistan and Bolivia, have capped or halted wheat exports. More than a dozen have limited corn exports. Kazakhstan has restricted exports of sunflower seeds. The restrictions are making it harder for impoverished importing countries to afford the food they need. The export limits are forcing some of the most vulnerable people, those who rely on relief agencies, to go hungry. "It's obvious that these export restrictions fuel the fire of price increases," said Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization.
  One relates directly to trade: Is it best to specialize in whatever food grows best in a country's soil, and trade it for all other food needs - or even, perhaps, specialize in services or manufacturing, and trade those for food? Or is it best to seek self-sufficiency in every possible type of food that will, weather permitting, grow within a country's borders? The usual answer from economists, is that the world benefits most if every country specializes in growing, or servicing or making what it can most efficiently, and trading for the rest.
  But relying on food imports becomes much riskier if other countries are prepared to shut off the tap [Food security] [Sanctions] [IM] [Juche]
• Taliban Imperil Pakistani City, a Major Hub
  By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH Published: June 28, 2008 PESHAWAR, Pakistan — In the last two months, Taliban militants have suddenly tightened the noose on this city of three million people, one of Pakistan’s biggest, establishing bases in surrounding towns and, in daylight, abducting residents for high ransoms. Taliban militants prepared on Friday to execute two men in Bajur, having accused them of helping the United States to carry out a missile strike. One of the men was decapitated. The militants move unchallenged out of the lawless tribal region (sic), just 10 miles away, in convoys of heavily armed, long haired and bearded men. They have turned up at courthouses in nearby towns, ordering judges to stay away. On Thursday they stormed a women’s voting station on the city outskirts, and they are now regularly kidnapping people from the city’s bazaars and homes. There is a feeling that the city gates could crumble at any moment. [Media]
• Taliban flourishing, Pentagon reports
  Attacks in Afghanistan grow in number, complexity, report says By David Wood Sun reporter June 28, 2008 WASHINGTON After nearly seven years of war in Afghanistan, the Taliban-led insurgency is flourishing, the Defense Department indicated in a gloomy new report yesterday, saying the insurgents are likely to accelerate their attacks and expand into new regions in northern and western regions of the country. The Pentagon's assessment came as U.S. casualties in Afghanistan rose to 23 in June, the second-deadliest month for American forces since the U.S. invaded weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

• Revolution and compromise
  - Netrabikram Chand ‘Biplap’
  Our revolution is in the stage of negotiation and our party sees compromise as another aspect of the class struggle. The question has not yet been finalised whether the revolution will be accomplished through compromise or it will be pushed towards counter-revolution. There is an incessant and fierce struggle between two different world outlooks that is attracting attention nationally and internationally. [Making]
• How to silence that Iran war drumbeat
  War is not inevitable. Bold, transparent diplomacy can work. By John K. Cooley from the June 18, 2008 edition
  Athens - Increasing signs that either Israel or the US might attack Iran before President Bush leaves office have many people in Europe, the Middle East, and around the world on edge. Whether the rumblings are real or overinflated rumors, it's time to reverse any momentum that could unleash a potentially calamitous Middle East conflict, killing thousands, sending oil prices to $200 a barrel and beyond, and accentuating global recession. After talks with Mr. Bush on his tour through Europe, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown didn't mention war explicitly, but did say that European states would agree to impose new financial sanctions on Tehran. Bush noted that "all options are on the table," and that the ball was in Tehran's court. Tehran, meanwhile, seems to continue to ignore the threat of sanctions. Years of US and UN sanctions haven't made Tehran change its policies. Why would it do so now? In fact, some of the big Western banks have acceded to US demands to curb credits to Iran, hitting imports of products from refrigerators to children's toys. But Iranian importers have now turned to Chinese and smaller Western banks. What Iran is discovering is that it can deal somewhat successfully regardless. [Unintended consequences] [Sanctions]
• Afghans See Pakistan Role in Karzai Plot
  By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and GRAHAM BOWLEY Published: June 26, 2008 KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government for the first time publicly accused the Pakistani intelligence service on Wednesday of organizing the failed plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai at a parade in Kabul in April. In a news conference in Kabul, Sayeed Ansari, the spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, said Afghan authorities had evidence of the direct involvement of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, in the assassination attempt.
• No Moral Ground to Oust Mugabe
  Blood on his hands is not a disqualification to rule.
  Robert Mugabe is indeed an odious ruler with blood on his hands. But since when is that a disqualification to rule? The world has long been full of rulers even more odious and bloodthirsty than he. We would love to have a world composed exclusively of enlightened democracies. But since that is not the case, should we oust dictators by force? The practical difficulties--and possibility of massive, cruel disaster--have already been demonstrated in efforts to remove a dictator in Iraq. Even putting aside the practical difficulties, how firm is the moral ground for acting against Mugabe?   The vast majority of 20th century world rulers were bloody autocrats, and the shift to democracy in the 21st century has so far been partial and unconvincing. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are autocracies. Does anybody suggest UN action to topple them? All the Central Asian republics are autocracies. Does anybody suggest toppling them? No, because they are generally pro-Western autocracies, and that apparently expiates their sins. Of Mugabe's many crimes, the one that is apparently unforgivable is that he has confiscated the land of white farmers, killed some and driven out others. In earlier times, when he accommodated whites, the West hailed him as a great freedom fighter. Britain even knighted him. These encomiums were poured on him despite his killing 10,000 to 20,000 members of the rival Matabele tribe during an uprising. Nobody called him a bloody criminal at the time. Only when he turned viciously against whites did the western media and political class suddenly find in him despicable qualities that had somehow escaped them earlier. [Double standards]
• East Asian Security Strengthened by U.S. Alliances
  As a Pacific nation, United States plays “enduring” role in Asia 02 June 2008 Washington -- The United States' commitment to East Asian security is strengthened by its relationships with partners and friends, says Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and these alliances provide the foundation of the U.S. security presence. "For those who worry that Iraq and Afghanistan have distracted the United States from Asia and developments in this region, I would counter that we have never been more engaged with more countries," Gates said May 31 at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. "The United States is a Pacific nation with an enduring role in Asia."
• Rice Emphasizes Successes in U.S.-East Asian Relations
  She praises partners in North Korea negotiations 19 June 2008 Washington -- Since the beginning of the Bush administration in 2001, one of the highest goals of U.S. foreign policy has been to deepen the chances for peace and security in Northeast Asia, and the effort seems to be succeeding. "We have reaffirmed and modernized our historic alliances with fellow democracies Japan and South Korea. Our relationships with these allies remain the pillars of regional stability, and we have broadened their scope," says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
• $2 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan questioned
  Overall, the U.S. has paid more than $5 billion to reimburse the country for counter-terrorism expenses, a GAO report says.
  By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 25, 2008 WASHINGTON -- The United States has paid more than $5 billion to reimburse Pakistan for counter-terrorism expenses that have often been exaggerated, if not fabricated, according to a government audit released Tuesday that blasts the Pentagon for poor management of the program. The report concluded that the Pentagon could not properly account for as much as $2 billion in payments to Pakistan over a three-year period from 2004 to 2007.
• Heinz pulls ad showing men kissing
  Mark Sweney guardian.co.uk, Tuesday June 24, 2008 Heinz has withdrawn its Deli Mayo TV ad that featured two men sharing a kiss and apologised to viewers after the advertising regulator received about 200 complaints that it was offensive and inappropriate. The Heinz Deli Mayo ad has been pulled after less than a week on air after viewers complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that it was "offensive" and "inappropriate to see two men kissing". [IM]
• Was Heinz male kiss ad really too hot for TV?
  Heinz has pulled its male kiss TV ad after 200 complaints to the advertising watchdog that it was 'offensive'. But was the light-hearted look at the family routine really so outrageous? June 24, 2008 10:57 AM Heinz has pulled its Deli Mayo male kiss TV ad after around 200 outraged viewers complained that it was "offensive" and that it inappropriately raised the "difficult subject of same sex relationships". Yet to watch the light-hearted ad it all seems a like a bit of a storm in a tea cup - begging the question of whether viewers are perhaps not as tolerant as they like to think? [IM]
• Army flayed over 21-year-old's $298 million arms deal
  By Lesley Clark | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Military officials came under withering attack Tuesday in Congress from both Democrats and Republicans, who expressed anger and astonishment that a 21-year-old Miami Beach man with a spot on a State Department "watch list" and a history of failing to deliver on military contracts was awarded a $298 million deal to provides arms to allied forces in Afghanistan. A congressional investigation found that Efraim Diveroli — who's now 22 — was granted the contract even though he, his company, AEY, and a supplier he worked with were on a State Department watch list for suspicious international arms dealers, said Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
  Authorities contend that Diveroli and three employees conspired to defraud the federal government by selling it more than $10 million worth of Chinese-made machine-gun rounds, telling U.S. officials that the ammunition was from Albania. Diveroli's attorney has called the government indictment flawed. The committee contends that the senior U.S. diplomat in Albania tried to cover up the Chinese origins of the ammunition, which AEY shipped to Afghanistan.   [Bizarre] [China confrontation]
• Most Americans Believe in Higher Power, Poll Finds
  By Jacqueline L. Salmon Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 24, 2008; Page A02 Most Americans believe that angels and demons are active in the world, and nearly 80 percent think miracles occur, according to a poll released yesterday that takes an in-depth look at Americans' religious beliefs. The study detailed Americans' deep and broad religiosity, finding that 92 percent believe in God or a universal spirit -- including one in five of those who call themselves atheists. More than half of Americans polled pray at least once a day. [religion]
• The myth of 'weapons-grade' enrichment
  By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
  Talk about the double standards at the United Nations. Whereas UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly condemned Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's rhetoric against Israel, expressing "shock and dismay", he has remained ominously, and inexcusably, silent about the blatant Israeli threats of military attacks on Iran, thus undermining the world's confidence in his ability to steer the global community clear of yet another major war in the Middle East caldron. Having turned a blind eye to Iran's formal protest at the UN regarding Israel's explicit threats, Ban may need to revisit his own statement of June 7, 2007, "The secretary general points out that all members have undertaken to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." [UNUS] [Double standards] [Ban Ki-moon] [Media]
• American Envoy Is Linked to Arms Deal Cover-Up
  By ERIC SCHMITT Published: June 24, 2008 WASHINGTON — An American ambassador helped cover up the illegal Chinese origins of ammunition that a Pentagon contractor bought to supply Afghan security forces, according to testimony gathered by Congressional investigators.   [Bizarre]
• Government Study Criticizes Bush Administration’s Measures of Progress in Iraq
  By JAMES GLANZ Published: June 24, 2008 Beyond the declines in overall violence in Iraq, several crucial measures the Bush administration uses to demonstrate economic, political and security progress are either incorrect or far more mixed than the administration has acknowledged, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.
• Al-Qaeda's Growing Online Offensive
  By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, June 24, 2008; Page A01 CAIRO Second of two articles Early this year, a religious radical calling himself Abu Hamza had a question for the deputy leader of al-Qaeda regarding the Egyptian secret police. "Are they committing unbelief?" he tapped on his keyboard. "And is it permissible to kill them?"
  A few weeks later, an answer came from a man with a $25 million bounty on his head, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Killing the police is justified, Zawahiri replied, because they are "infidels, each and every one of them." The exchange was part of the latest propaganda coup orchestrated by al-Qaeda: an online chat between Zawahiri -- one of the world's most wanted fugitives -- and hundreds of curious people around the globe. After announcing in a Web forum in December that he would entertain questions on virtually any topic, Zawahiri received 1,888 written queries from journalists and the public. He patiently answered about one-fifth of them, even hostile postings that condemned al-Qaeda for harming innocents and perverting Islam. [Propaganda] [Softpower]
• Mother Earth's Triple Whammy. North Korea as a Global Crisis Canary
  John Feffer
  Gas prices are above $4 a gallon; global food prices surged 39% last year; and an environmental disaster looms as carbon emissions continue to spiral upward. The global economy appears on the verge of a TKO, a triple whammy from energy, agriculture, and climate-change trends. Right now you may be grumbling about the extra bucks you're shelling out at the pump and the grocery store; but, unless policymakers begin to address all three of these trends as one major crisis, it could get a whole lot worse.
  Just ask the North Koreans.
  In the 1990s, North Korea was the world's canary. The famine that killed as much as 10% of the North Korean population in those years was, it turns out, a harbinger of the crisis that now grips the globe -- though few saw it that way at the time.
• Islamic scholar voted world's No 1 thinker
  Robert Tait in Istanbul The Guardian, Monday June 23, 2008 Article history   Link to this video Does the movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen represent a modern brand of Islam, or a subtle attempt to infiltrate religion into secular Turkey? The Guardian's religious affairs correspondent, Riazat Butt, reports from Istanbul A hitherto largely unknown Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gülen, has been voted the world's top intellectual in a poll to find the leading 100 thinkers. Gülen, the author of more than 60 books, won a landslide triumph after the survey - which is organised by the British magazine, Prospect, and Foreign Policy, a US publication - attracted more than 500,000 votes. The top 10 individuals were all Muslim and included two Nobel laureates, the novelist Orhan Pamuk, who is also Turkish, at No 4, and the Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, in 10th. The result surprised organisers, who attributed it to a sustained campaign by Gülen's followers, known as the Gülen Movement, after Turkey's biggest-selling newspaper, Zaman, publicised the poll. [Democracy]
• U.S. Network Falters in Mideast Mission
  By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, June 23, 2008; Page A01 CAIRO First of two articles The Egyptian bureau of al-Hurra, an Arabic-language television network financed by the U.S. government, boasts a spectacular view of the Nile River and the capital's bustling streets. But inside, all is quiet. The bureau's satellite link was unplugged with little explanation a few weeks ago by a local company, making it impossible to broadcast live. Since then, staffers have had to use a studio controlled by the Egyptian secret police, who have warned guests not to say anything controversial on the air. Al-Hurra -- "The Free One" in Arabic -- is the centerpiece of a U.S. government campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East. Taxpayers have spent $350 million on the project. But more than four years after it began broadcasting, the station is widely regarded as a flop in the Arab world, where it has struggled to attract viewers and overcome skepticism about its mission. Propaganda has become a primary front in the war against terrorism, with the United States and al-Qaeda each investing heavily to win over hearts and minds. [Propaganda] [Softpower] [Decline]
• Interview: Ken Livingstone
  How is the ex-mayor of London spending his enforced retirement? We found him bemused by the talk of his 'secret love-children', still hurling insults at his enemies, stalking the new mayor through the corridors of power... and refusing to rule out yet another political comeback. Watch your back, Boris. Carole Cadwalladr
  Later I meet his partner Emma Beal, who's lovely, friendly and, I'm sure, highly competent, but if you're going to avoid charges of cronyism you'd be better off not making your partner your office manager. Boris seems to think so anyhow, as she, along with four other Ken appointments, got the push this week
  It was Platell who wrote: 'The strangest aspect of Ken Livingstone's love life is not that he's got five children, it's that he managed to find three women in the world who were actually willing to sleep with him.' She's wrong though: the strangest thing is that, somehow, amazingly, the whole story never came out before, even though his oldest child is 15. It's alleged he was born within two months of his daughter by another mother, at the same hospital, and all while he was still living with his long-term partner, Kate Allen, now director of Amnesty International
• ElBaradei: Mideast could burn if Iran attacked
  By ALI AKBAR DAREINI – 4 hours ago DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief warned in comments aired Saturday that any military strike on Iran could turn the Mideast into a "ball of fire" and lead the country to a more aggressive stance on its controversial nuclear program. The comments by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, came in an interview with an Arab television station aired a day after U.S. officials said they believed recent large Israeli military exercises may have been meant to show Israel's ability to hit Iran's nuclear sites. "In my opinion, a military strike will be the worst ... it will turn the Middle East to a ball of fire," ElBaradei said on Al-Arabiya television. It also could prompt Iran to press even harder to seek a nuclear program, and force him to resign, he said.
• Bush May End Term With Iran Issue Unsettled
  By HELENE COOPER Published: June 21, 2008 WASHINGTON — For more than five years now, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have made clear that they did not want to leave office with Iran any closer to possessing nuclear weapons than when they took office.
  Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said the United States had not proved that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons. “The nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons,” Mr. Bush said in February 2006. The United States is prepared to use its naval power “to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region,” Mr. Cheney said in 2007 from a Navy carrier in the Persian Gulf. But with seven months left in this administration, Iran appears ascendant, its political and economic influence growing, its historic foes in Iraq and Afghanistan weakened, and its nuclear program continuing to move forward. So the question now is: Are Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney resigned to leaving Iran more powerful than they found it when they came to office? The evidence is mixed.
  Mr. Bush himself seemed to signal as much at the start of his European tour last week in Slovenia, when he said of Iran that he expected to “leave behind a multilateral framework to work on this issue,” a statement that seemed to suggest that military action against Iran may no longer be on the table
• How Iran would retaliate if it comes to war
  Military analysts say the Islamic Republic would strike back in unconventional ways – targeting American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan. By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the June 20, 2008 edition
  2 Istanbul, Turkey - Pressure is building on Iran. This week Europe agreed to new sanctions and President Bush again suggested something more serious – possible military strikes – if the Islamic Republic doesn't bend to the will of the international community on its nuclear program. But increasingly military analysts are warning of severe consequences if the US begins a shooting war with Iran. While Iranian forces are no match for American technology on a conventional battlefield, Iran has shown that it can bite back in unconventional ways. Iranian networks in Iraq and Afghanistan could imperil US interests there; American forces throughout the Gulf region could be targeted by asymmetric methods and lethal rocket barrages; and Iranian partners across the region – such as Hezbollah in Lebanon – could be mobilized to engage in an anti-US fight.
  Iran's response could also be global, analysts say, but the scale would depend on the scale of the US attack. "One very important issue from a US intelligence perspective, [the Iranian reaction] is probably more unpredictable than the Al Qaeda threat," says Magnus Ranstorp at the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm. "I doubt very much our ability to manage some of the consequences," says Mr. Ranstorp, noting that Iranian revenge attacks in the past have been marked by "plausible deniability" and have had global reach. "If you attack Iran you are unleashing a firestorm of reaction internally that will only strengthen revolutionary forces, and externally in the region," says Ranstorp. "It's a nightmare scenario for any contingency planner, and I think you really enter the twilight zone if you strike Iran."
• General who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account. The remarks by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who's now retired, came in a new report that found that U.S. personnel tortured and abused detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using beatings, electrical shocks, sexual humiliation and other cruel practices. "After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes," Taguba wrote. "The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." Taguba, whose 2004 investigation documented chilling abuses at Abu Ghraib, is thought to be the most senior official to have accused the administration of war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," he wrote. [Human rights]
• Pakistan's Plea For Patience
  By Jackson Diehl Monday, June 16, 2008; Page A19 It's easy to imagine the gloating smirk on the face of Pervez Musharraf. The autocratic ruler of Pakistan from October 1999 until February 2008 still sits in the sprawling home reserved for the country's army commander, though he gave up the post last year. He is still president, though he has lost much of his power to an elected civilian government. For years, Musharraf resisted pressure from Washington to allow this return to democracy, arguing that only he could serve as a reliable partner in the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Now he might point to democracy's result: a fractious parliamentary coalition all but paralyzed by byzantine political struggles; rebellious lawyers and judges, who last week marched on the capital; and soaring food prices and power shortages, which threaten to trigger mass unrest. Meanwhile, Pakistan's army and security forces are refraining from action against Taliban and al-Qaeda havens in the tribal territories along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Those bases are being used for attacks on American troops in Afghanistan and are the most likely launching pad for a new terrorist strike against the United States. A confused firefight on the border last week, in which U.S. forces may have killed Pakistani soldiers, only illustrated how far the countries are from cooperating effectively against the looming threat. "You see?" the old general might say. "This is what your demand for democracy in Pakistan has brought about." [Democracy] [Imperialism]
• Pakistani anger over U.S. airstrike remains
  By Jane Perlez Published: June 17, 2008 ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani military is so angry over the U.S. airstrikes here last week that it is threatening to postpone or cancel an American program to train a paramilitary force in counterinsurgency for combating Islamic militants, two Pakistani government officials said. The U.S. alliance with Pakistan - born after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as an important vehicle for the fight against terrorism - now stands deeply scarred by the June 10 airstrikes, Pakistani officials and Western diplomats said. In fact, some Pakistani officials are accusing the United States of purposefully firing on their military, an accusation the Americans deny. "This is the first time the United States has deliberately targeted cooperating Pakistani forces," said Jehangir Karamat, a former chief of the Pakistani Army and a former ambassador to the United States. "There has been no statement by the United States that this was 'friendly fire' and that the intention was not to target Pakistani forces."
• President pours praise on Brown·
  More Iran sanctions, more UK troops for Afghanistan · London determined to back Washington on terror Patrick Wintour and Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Tuesday June 17 2008 George Bush yesterday heaped praise on Gordon Brown as the prime minister announced that Britain would intensify sanctions against Iranian banks, dispatch 230 extra troops to southern Afghanistan and keep British troops in southern Iraq until the build-up of Iraqi security forces justified a withdrawal. Big cuts in British troop levels in Iraq were not expected until next year, military sources said as the US president insisted there was no difference between British and American policy in Iraq. [Sanctions]
• U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases
  By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers KABUL, Afghanistan — American soldiers herded the detainees into holding pens of razor-sharp concertina wire, the kind that's used to corral livestock. The guards kicked, kneed and punched many of the men until they collapsed in pain. U.S. troops shackled and dragged other detainees to small isolation rooms, then hung them by their wrists from chains dangling from the wire mesh ceiling. Former guards and detainees whom McClatchy interviewed said Bagram was a center of systematic brutality for at least 20 months, starting in late 2001. Yet the soldiers responsible have escaped serious punishment. [Human rights]
• The Web Time Forgot
  By ALEX WRIGHT Published: June 17, 2008 MONS, Belgium — On a fog-drizzled Monday afternoon, this fading medieval city feels like a forgotten place. Apart from the obligatory Gothic cathedral, there is not much to see here except for a tiny storefront museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a narrow street in the northeast corner of town. It feels like a fittingly secluded home for the legacy of one of technology’s lost pioneers: Paul Otlet. In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or "electric telescopes," as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a "réseau," which might be translated as "network" — or arguably, "web."
• Is McCain Like Bush? It Depends on the Issue
  By ELISABETH BUMILLER Published: June 17, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Democrats like to say that electing Senator John McCain would usher in the third term of George W. Bush, and they do not mean it as a compliment. The Republicans counter that calling the senator "McBush" is political spin and that Mr. McCain is his own man. A look at Mr. McCain’s 25-year record in the House and Senate, his 2008 campaign positions and his major speeches over the last three months indicates that on big-ticket issues — the economy, support for continuing the Iraq war, health care — his stances are indeed similar to Mr. Bush’s brand of conservatism. Mr. McCain’s positions are nearly identical to the president’s on abortion and the types of judges he says he would appoint to the courts. On the environment, American diplomacy and nuclear proliferation, Mr. McCain has strikingly different views from Mr. Bush, and while he shares the president’s goals in Iraq, he was at times an outspoken critic of the way the war was managed.  
  On Iran and North Korea, the two nations whose nuclear programs will present the next president with a tough set of options, Mr. McCain has allied himself with the Bush administration. He would refuse to engage in unconditional diplomacy with Iran and would continue to maintain contact with North Korea, primarily through multilateral talks. He has insisted, however, that the United States be able to verify effectively any agreement in which North Korea promises to abandon its nuclear weapons.
• Trouble at the Pentagon
  Frida Berrigan
  | June 11, 2008 The Pentagon is in crisis: The war in Iraq is entering its fifth hot summer. And while U.S. troop casualties are down, the light at the end of the occupation tunnel is no closer and no brighter. Headaches mount on the home front as well. The head of the Air Force was recently embarrassed and forced from the cockpit. Billions of dollars have been misplaced or misspent. Huge cost overruns bedevil weapons contractors. And, private contractors have formed a cubicle mercenary force, outnumbering uniformed personnel and federal employees in many DoD agencies. The Government Accountability Office has issued a series of reports on these problems. While the watchdog agency sticks to the script of analytic bureaucratese, what they document is cumulatively damning to business as usual at the Pentagon.
  In Iraq, private military contractors like Blackwater and Kellogg Brown and Root are doing soldiers’ work for many times the pay. PMCs – as they are called – are so ubiquitous that the United States can no longer go to war without them. According to “Additional Personal Conflict of Interest Safeguards Needed for Certain DoD Contractor Employees,” a March GAO report, the Pentagon can’t do its paperwork without private contractors either. In offices throughout the Department of Defense, cubicle mercenaries are working shoulder-to-shoulder with uniformed military staff and federal employees. In fiscal year 2006, the Pentagon spent more on contracting for services with private companies than they spent on weapons systems or other equipment. Over the past 10 years, contracts with private companies for services have increased 78% in real terms – to a total of more than $151 billion. [Pentagon] [Privatisation]
• Obama's Victory? How Big? How Far?
  Immanuel Wallerstein
  Commentary No. 235, June 15, 2008 Let no one underestimate it. Barack Obama has won big. He has not only won the Democratic nomination for president. He is going to sweep the elections with a large majority of the Electoral College and a considerable increase in Democratic strength in both houses of the Congress. Before we analyze how far he will go, can go - that is, how much of a change this will actually mean - we must spell out how real is his electoral triumph.
  Now what will this mean? Obama is not planning some revolutionary turnabout in U.S. politics. He is surrounded by a lot of conventional Democratic politicians and advisors. But he will be swept into power by a wave of enthusiasm for change that the United States has not seen since Kennedy's election. True, there is only so much he can do on the world scene, despite the fact that he will be cheered on by the entire rest of the world. The global geopolitical anarchy is far beyond the control of any American president today.
  The basic question is not whether he will transform the world and/or restore U.S. leadership in the world-system - he will do neither - but whether he will do as much as it is possible to do in allowing us all to push our way forward. Even if this is less than the world might wish he could do [Decline]
• The Coming Euroinvasion
  By Moisés Naím
  May/June 2008 First they came for the iPods. Then the Europeans snatched up condos in Manhattan. Now they’re coming for the companies. Michael Nagle/Getty Images A sign in East Village Wines informs customers that the wine and liquor store accepts payment in euros. I am not worried about rich Arabs; it’s the French who worry me.” This was the response from a businessman in Clovis, California, reacting to my comment that the U.S. government was concerned about the influence of foreign-owned sovereign wealth funds. [Decline] [FDI] [M&A] [USD_Euro]
• Bank ditches UK firms trading with Cuba
  Duncan Campbell The Guardian, Monday June 16 2008 Article history A Somerset health shop selling Cuban sugar and a London tobacconist dealing in Habanos cigars are among British businesses told by a bank to cut their ties with the island or move their accounts. Lloyds TSB has written to customers who have dealings with Cuba saying they will have take their accounts elsewhere, apparently in the wake of threats by the US government, which operates an embargo against Cuba. The US has said it will prosecute any businesses that have any dealings with Cuba and also have a branch in the US. The Queenswood Natural Foods company, of Bridgwater in Somerset, started buying sugar from Cuba last year and has found it to be a popular line. Last month, the company received a letter from Lloyds TSB saying that the bank had "recently reviewed its approach to dealing with countries and entities that are subject to government and international sanctions across the globe in order to best protect its customers, its businesses, its people and its reputation". It was no longer prepared to authorise payments from the company to buy sugar from Cuba.   [Sanctions] [Extraterritoriality]
• America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men
  By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers GARDEZ, Afghanistan - The militants crept up behind Mohammed Akhtiar as he squatted at the spigot to wash his hands before evening prayers at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. They shouted "Allahu Akbar" - God is great - as one of them hefted a metal mop squeezer into the air, slammed it into Akhtiar's head and sent thick streams of blood running down his face. Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as "the worst of the worst." But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo's Camp Four who hissed "infidel" and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn't: The U.S. government had the wrong guy. [Human rights] [Incompetence]  
• Gates Says New Arms Must Play Role Now
  By THOM SHANKER Published: May 14, 2008 COLORADO SPRINGS — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned the military and its contractors on Tuesday that expensive new conventional weapons must prove their value to current conflicts, marked by insurgency and terrorism, if they are to be included in further Pentagon budgets. “I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called next-war-itis — the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict,” Mr. Gates told a conference here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.
  But he warned any adversary against thinking that the United States had dropped its guard, saying that while the Army and the Marines carried the brunt of the nation’s current combat effort, the Air Force and the Navy would be “America’s main strategic deterrent” against potential adversaries like Iran, North Korea and China. He called for careful spending to modernize and expand both of these services. [US military]
• Remarks to the Heritage Foundation (Colorado Springs, CO)
  As Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates
  , Colorado Springs, Colorado, Tuesday, May 13, 2008 For starters, I should note that, despite my job description, I may not actually be the best person to speak at a conference titled, “The Military Beyond Iraq.” I say this because for much of the past year I’ve been trying to concentrate the minds and energies of the defense establishment on the current needs and current conflicts. In short, to ensure that all parts of the Defense Department are, in fact, at war. [US military]
• Gates the Substitute Teacher
  Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates is at it again. In a speech in Colorado Springs yesterday, he implored the armed forces to cure themselves of what he calls "Next-War-Itis" and focus on current needs. Conventional wisdom has it that the anti-Rumsfeld is doing God's work by trying to convince the generals to buy more gear for the troops today and less for war with China tomorrow, by prodding the bureaucracy to supply more of what is needed today and abandon its fixation with fantastic super-weapons. He is trying, in short, to build some kind of team spirit to fight on. But I'm beginning to wonder whether Gates is less a wise man than a substitute teacher. Gates wants the military just to complete its assignment while he watches from the front of the room. Not only does he know he'll be gone tomorrow, but his grasp of the subject matter and his knowledge about his own students is questionable. [US military]
• A Sober Assessment of Afghanistan
  Outgoing U.S. Commander Cites 50% Spike in Attacks in East
  By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 15, 2008; Page A16 The outgoing top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan said Friday that attacks increased 50 percent in April in the country's eastern region, where U.S. troops primarily operate, as a spreading Taliban insurgency across the border in Pakistan fueled a surge in violence. In a sober assessment, Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who departed June 3 after 16 months commanding NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, said that although record levels of foreign and Afghan troops have constrained repeated Taliban offensives, stabilizing Afghanistan will be impossible without a more robust military campaign against insurgent havens in Pakistan.  
• Bush warns Brown over plan to cut Iraq force
  President tells UK to avoid rushing into troop withdrawals
  Ned Temko The Observer, Sunday June 15 2008
  George Bush flies into London today with a warning for Gordon Brown not to announce a timetable for a British pull-out from Iraq, and expressing deep scepticism about the Prime Minister's high-profile strategy for bringing down world oil prices. The stern message to the Prime Minister was delivered during an exclusive interview with The Observer, and contrasted with praise for Tony Blair whom Bush is scheduled to meet for breakfast tomorrow ahead of talks in Downing Street. Bush said Blair had never been his 'poodle', but a leader who shared his view that the world is in an 'ideological struggle' and that 'ultimately freedom has to defeat the ideology of hate'.
• Che Guevara, 4 decades later, gets a hometown statue
  By Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers
  ROSARIO, Argentina - While Ernesto "Che" Guevara remains the most famous export of this sleepy city, his legacy here has long been a low-key one. Except for a handful of businesses named in his honor, few markers alert visitors that the revolutionary leader was born here exactly 80 years ago before becoming one of the most mythic figures of the 20th century. That changed Saturday when civic leaders inaugurated the first official monument honoring the revolutionary leader in Argentina, ending decades of government silence about the controversial figure. A 13-foot-high bronze statue unveiled before hundreds of cheering admirers depicts the beret-wearing Guevara standing defiantly while facing toward Santa Clara, Cuba, where another statue of Guevara faces toward Argentina. Much of Guevara's family, including three of his children, attended the ceremony along with other veterans of the Cuban Revolution who fought beside Guevara. Sculptor Andres Zerneri, who created the statue, said the time had come in Guevara's native country for such a monument, especially as the revolutionary's influence spreads around a Latin America increasingly dominated by leftist governments.
• Pendulum swings away from free trade
  June 14, 2008 After six decades of ever-expanding international commerce, the high tide of free trade is ebbing. As tens of thousands of Koreans protest U.S. beef imports, rising commodity prices push nations to keep more food for domestic consumption, and the U.S. chooses a new president who might be less supportive of free trade than his immediate predecessors, the world may be facing the end of a cycle that began in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The liberalization of global trade has come "to a screeching halt," said Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. [Globalisation] [Protectionism]
• Pakistan rally, unexpectedly huge, presses judges' cause
  By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Mullahs and communists, and it seemed everything in between, came out in Pakistan Friday in a massive rally against President Pervez Musharraf, seeking to force the government to restore the judges fired by the U.S.-backed president. In a huge challenge to Musharraf, and also to the newly elected government, tens of thousands of ordinary Pakistanis confounded all expectations by coming out in noisy, excited support of an independent judiciary.    
• Pakistan's Sharif Stirs Call For Musharraf to Be Hanged
  By REUTERS Published: June 14, 2008 Filed at 4:19 a.m. ET ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif stepped up his attack on President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday, suggesting he could be hanged while addressing thousands of protesters outside the presidency. "We asked you to quit with honor after the election but you didn't," Sharif told the crowd, referring to U.S. ally Musharraf, who overthrew him in a 1999 coup. "Now people have given a new judgment for you ... they want you to be held accountable," he said in the early hours of Saturday. The crowd, officially estimated at up to 20,000, chanted "hang Musharraf" as it listened to the two time former prime minister's fiery speech.
• For Oil-Rich Iran, Friends are Not Proving Hard to Find
  May 27, 2008 The Financial Times Anna Fifield in Tehran Just weeks after Jakarta became the only United Nations security council member to abstain from the latest resolution on Tehran’s nuclear programme, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad feted his Indonesian counterpart as his “brother”. “We will take actions to create international peace,” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said during Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s visit to Tehran in March. They signed five memoranda of understanding, including one to build a $6bn oil refinery in Indonesia. Meanwhile, Mr Yudhoyono (below left) asserted: “Iran’s nuclear programme is of a peaceful nature and must not be politicised.”
• Washington's choice: subdue Iran, secure Iraq
  Paul Rogers
  In managing its unfinished business with Tehran and Baghdad, the George W Bush administration seeks to bind the region - and its successor 12 - 06 - 2008 The United States is facing key military and political decisions over a bitter current adversary, Iran, and an adversary-turned-ally, Iraq. Their outcome will have major consequences for the short- and medium-term future both of the middle east and the US homeland. The decision over Iran, put crudely, is whether and when to go to war in the attempt to counter and/or disable Iran's nuclear-power developments.
  The prospect of a grinning Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outlasting the administration that for so long excoriated him would be a form of humiliation as well as confirmation of deep policy failure. What makes it even more exasperating is the ever-stronger view that the Iraq war is winnable. The neocons, and more generally hardliners inside and outside the administration (such as former United Nations ambassador John Bolton), would regard victory in Iraq as hollow if the regime in Iran - which they have always seen as the real threat to the US's regional interests - survives and thrives.
  The neocon calculation is that America's overwhelming air-power superiority would at least inflict serious damage on Iran's economy; in addition it would bind its successor administration - whether led by John McCain or Barack Obama - into a conflict whose agenda and dynamics the architects of the "long war" would continue to shape.
  One result is that around $50 billion of Iraqi money is held (under the terms of the UN mandate) by the Federal Reserve bank in New York, pending multiple legal cases against Iraq in US courts [extraterritoriality]
• Hawks still circling on Iran
  By Jim Lobe
  WASHINGTON - Once again, notably in the wake of last week's annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and the visit to the capital of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there's a lot of chatter about a possible attack by Israel and/or the United States on Iran.
  Third, Liz Cheney's remarks should be seen in the context of a more concerted attack by the hawks on Rice of which the recent hatchet job by the Weekly Standard's by Stephen Hayes, the vice president's favorite reporter, was perhaps the most important piece. Hayes accused Rice of betraying the Bush Doctrine and focused much of his essay on her backing for US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill's negotiations over the past year with North Korea, on which the State Department has already been forced on the defensive. [Dissension] [Neocons]
• Global Survey Shows U.S. Image Improving
  For the first time this decade, an international survey shows an increasing number of people have a favorable view of the United States. But as VOA's Kent Klein reports from Washington, the survey also shows pessimism about the world economy. Anticipation of a new U.S. President seems to be one factor in a global poll that shows that the number of people who look at the United States in a positive way has increased modestly in the past year. The Washington-based Pew Research Center surveyed more than 24,000 people in 24 countries. Among those polled, favorable views of the U.S. were higher this year than last year in almost half of those countries. One big reason for that is the prospect of a new U.S. President next year, according to Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center. "People around the world are looking forward to a new President," said Andrew Kohut. "President Bush has been very unpopular over the course of his term. And many people, if not most people following the election say the next President will provide a more acceptable foreign policy, and I think that may be part of the answer here." In almost all of the countries surveyed in March and April, presumptive Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama received much more support than his likely Republican Party opponent, John McCain.
• Foreign nations overwhelmingly prefer Obama, survey finds
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Foreigners overwhelmingly expect the next American president to change U.S. foreign policy "for the better," but have more confidence in Democratic candidate Barack Obama than Republican rival John McCain, according to a multi-nation poll released Thursday. The survey of nearly 25,000 people in 24 countries also found, for the first time in a decade, a modest uptick in the United States' dismal global image. One reason for that may be the boisterous U.S. presidential campaign, which is being watched closely from Asia to Europe and the Middle East. More Japanese (83 percent) are following news about the race than are U.S. citizens (80 percent), the poll showed. The annual survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, found that if foreigners had a vote in November, they would vote in a landslide for Obama. Of the two-dozen countries surveyed, publics in just two, Jordan and Pakistan, rated Obama and McCain about evenly. But in both countries, there was little confidence in either candidate. [Softpower]
• A Firefight in Pakistan
  Wednesday, June 11, 2008 In the “interesting developments” file, NATO forces from Afghanistan operating inside Pakistan killed thirteen members of the Pakistan Frontier Corps, including a major, and wounded about a dozen more. The fatalities were not the result of a stray mortar round or a Hellfire missile fired more on the basis of hope rather than solid intelligence. A nightlong series of USAF airstrike carried out by two F15s and a B1 bomber supported by a surveillance drone plastered the Pakistani battlefield during a firefight between US and Afghan forces and Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. That’s not quite precision firepower.
• Pakistan hits out at US airstrike
  By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad Published: June 11 2008 18:54 | Last updated: June 12 2008 00:43 Pakistan on Wednesday strongly criticised a US military airstrike near the border with Afghanistan that officials claimed was responsible for the death of 11 Pakistani soldiers.
• Pakistan Angry as Strike by U.S. Kills 11 Soldiers
  By CARLOTTA GALL and ERIC SCHMITT Published: June 12, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — American air and artillery strikes killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers during a clash with insurgents on the Afghan border on Tuesday night, a development that raised concerns about the already strained American relationship with Pakistan.
• New Criminal Record: 7.2 Million
  Nation's Justice System Strains to Keep Pace With Convictions
  By Darryl Fears Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 12, 2008; Page A09 The number of people under supervision in the nation's criminal justice system rose to 7.2 million in 2006, the highest ever, costing states tens of billions of dollars to house and monitor offenders as they go in and out of jails and prisons. According to a recently released report released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than 2 million offenders were either in jail or prison in 2006, the most recent year studied in an annual survey. Another 4.2 million were on probation, and nearly 800,000 were on parole.     [Human rights]
• Blackwater's Private Spies
  By Jeremy Scahill
  This article appeared in the June 23, 2008 edition of The Nation. June 5, 2008 This past September, the secretive mercenary company Blackwater USA found its name splashed across front pages throughout the world after the company's shooters gunned down seventeen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square. But by early 2008, Blackwater had largely receded from the headlines save for the occasional blip on the media radar sparked by Congressman Henry Waxman's ongoing investigations into its activities. Its forces remained deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and business continued to pour in. In the two weeks directly following Nisour Square, Blackwater signed more than $144 million in contracts with the State Department for "protective services" in Iraq and Afghanistan alone and, over the following weeks and months, won millions more in contracts with other federal entities like the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Blackwater's Iraq contract was extended in April, but the company is by no means betting the house on its long-term presence there. While the firm is quietly maintaining its Iraq work, it is aggressively pursuing other business opportunities.
  What could prove to be one of Blackwater's most profitable and enduring enterprises is one of the company's most secretive initiatives--a move into the world of privatized intelligence services. In April 2006, Prince quietly began building Total Intelligence Solutions, which boasts that it "brings CIA-style" services to the open market for Fortune 500 companies. Among its offerings are "surveillance and countersurveillance, deployed intelligence collection, and rapid safeguarding of employees or other key assets." [Privatisation]
• Rice changes mind on nation building
  By MATTHEW LEE The Associated Press Monday, June 9, 2008; 5:06 PM WASHINGTON -- Eight years after bashing the Clinton administration for squandering U.S. resources on "nation building" around the world, Condoleezza Rice is singing a different tune. Then, as the chief foreign policy adviser for Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, Rice denounced the use of the U.S. government assets for the promotion of human rights and democracy abroad as naive and wasteful. Now, after serving as President Bush's national security adviser and secretary of state, Rice says she's changed her mind in an article entitled "Rethinking the National Interest" for the upcoming issue of "Foreign Affairs," the venerable journal of the international relations elite.
  Looking back on her time in two of Washington's most powerful jobs, Rice offers a broad defense of the Bush administration's foreign policy in the article, from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to negotiations with North Korea and dealing honestly with rising powers China and Russia despite their divergent interests and values. The 2000 essay lambasted the Clinton administration for some of the same behavior: military interventions in Haiti, Kosovo and Somalia, talking to North Korea and coddling China and Russia.
  In the 2000 essay, Rice mentioned al-Qaida not once, even though Osama bin Laden's network had blown up the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania two years earlier. In 2000, Rice used the word "Islam" just once, and it was in reference to Iran. In the 2008 version, al-Qaida is mentioned at least five times and "Islam" or a variant, three times, twice within the phrase "violent Islamist extremism." [Imperialism]
  • Rethinking the National Interest: American Realism for a New World
    Condoleezza Rice
    What is the national interest? This is a question that I took up in 2000 in these pages. That was a time that we as a nation revealingly called "the post-Cold War era." We knew better where we had been than where we were going. Yet monumental changes were unfolding -- changes that were recognized at the time but whose implications were largely unclear. [Decline] [Imperialism] [China confrontation]
  • Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest
    Condoleezza Rice
    From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000
    Summary: With no Soviet threat, America has found it exceedingly difficult to define its "national interest." Foreign policy in a Republican administration should refocus the country on key priorities: building a military ready to ensure American power, coping with rogue regimes, and managing Beijing and Moscow. Above all, the next president must be comfortable with America's special role as the world's leader. Condoleezza Rice is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is also foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.

• The Failed Expectations of U.S Trade Policy
  Robert Cassidy | June 4, 2008
  As the principal negotiator for the landmark market access agreement that led to China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), I have reflected on whether the agreements we negotiated really lived up to our expectations. A sober reflection has led me to conclude that those trade agreements did not. We failed to address the underlying fundamental market distortions that skew the benefits toward the few while leaving the rest of the economy less well off. As George Soros, in a Bloomberg News interview on the financial crisis, recently said, “…the system, as it currently operates, is built on false premises.” The premise on which our trade agreements are negotiated is at best flawed, if not broken. The next administration has to take a hard look at the trade agreements currently on the table – especially with South Korea – and ask: who benefits? The answers should lead to a fundamental reassessment of what needs to be included in those trade agreements so that the benefits flow to broader and more equitable segments of the economy. [China competition] [FTA] [Protectionism]
• Russia-China Relations Cool. Implications for the Asia Pacific
  M K Bhadrakumar
  Whatever can be said about who’s up and who’s down at any particular point in time in Asian great power politics, one immutable fact is that three major powers – Russia, China and Japan – are geographic neighbors. Living in proximity in a region with a long history of warfare and protracted struggles over resources, the three countries have powerful incentives to negotiate energy, trade and arms limitation agreements and establish conditions conducive to a peaceful and prosperous co-existence. But what of the United States, the Asia-Pacific’s fourth and strongest power both as the dominant military force in the region and as a major economic player? The US is now laying claim not only to recognition of its strength in the region, it is also insisting on its geographic place at the table in Asia-Pacific affairs.
• Geeks and Hackers, Uncle Sam's Cyber Force Wants You!
  By William J. Astore June 5, 2008
  Part of the Air Force's new "above all" vision of full-spectrum dominance, America's emerging cyber force has control fantasies that would impress George Orwell. Working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Department of Homeland Security, and other governmental agencies, the Air Force's stated goal is to gain access to, and control over, any and all networked computers, anywhere on Earth, at a proposed cost to you, the American taxpayer, of $30 billion over the first five years.
  After all, do we really want the military to dominate cyberspace? Let's say we answer "yes" because we love our big "Above All" cyber-brother. Now, imagine you're Chinese or Indian or Russian. Would you really cede total cyber-dominance to the United States without a fight? Not likely. You would simply launch--or intensify--your own cyber-war efforts [India confrontation] [Cyberwar]
• As Ills Persist, Afghan Leader Is Losing Luster
  By HELENE COOPER Published: June 7, 2008 WASHINGTON — After six years in which Hamid Karzai has been the darling of the United States and its allies, his luster may be fading. Times Topics: Hamid KarzaiNext week, Mr. Karzai, the Afghan president, is to arrive in Paris for a donors conference with attendees from 80 countries and organizations. He will ask for $50 billion to finance a five-year development plan intended to revive Afghanistan’s decrepit farming sector, promote economic development and diversify the
• Zimbabwe: Politics and Food Aid
  By Stephen Gowans
  There is no evidence that the government of Zimbabwe is using food “as a political tool to intimidate voters ahead of an election” or that it is deliberately denying “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Zimbabweans” food aid, as Human Rights Watch and The New York Times allege. In fact, a careful reading of what both sources claim, points to a deliberate and knowing attempt to palter with the truth, reflecting and reinforcing a narrative that holds Africa, and particularly Zimbabwe, to be marked by suffering people, corrupt and monstrous governments, and endless chaos [Aid weapon] [Sanctions] [Inversion]
• When the nukes start dropping ...
  By Julian Delasantellis But one thing that men apparently need no threats or intimidation to do is to plan, plot, scheme, even to detail and diagram, the killing of millions of their fellow men, women and children. As evidence of this, I present before the bar of humanity this item I recently came across on the Internet, a report authored by respected military analyst Anthony H Cordesman of the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think-tank, entitled "Iran, Israel and Nuclear War" [1].
• Iran, Israel, and Nuclear War
  Anthony H. Cordesman
  Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy Center for Strategic and International Studies Revised: November 19, 2007
• Negotiating with Hostile States
  Robert McMahon Deputy Editor, Council of Foreign Relations Wednesday, June 4, 2008; 10:48 AM Introduction Deciding whether or how to engage with the leaders of hostile states has been a matter of debate among U.S. policymakers for decades. In the post-9/11 world, it has become increasingly controversial as national security officials weigh the merits of negotiating with states seen as pursuing weapons of mass destruction as well as non-state actors posing a threat to U.S. targets or U.S. allies. This debate rages continually in the foreign policy community, and during presidential election years like 2008, it has often burst into the open.
  Some Cold War analysts say more effective as a counterweight to Soviet ambitions was the Nixon administration's simultaneous diplomacy with China, which led to the formal establishment of a dialogue with the 1972 Shanghai Communique. While not posing the direct threat that the Soviet Union represented, Communist China was viewed as no less odious by critics of the Nixon negotiations due to its intervention on North Korea's side in the Korean War, and because of massive human rights abuses, especially in the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. Despite such concerns, Nixon saw value in ending China's isolation. He wrote in an October 1967 Foreign Affairs article: "We simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its neighbors."
  In the years that followed, U.S. administrations held a number of adversarial states at arm's length, diplomatically. These states included Fidel Castro's Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Libya, Nicaragua, Syria, and Sudan. In some cases, like Vietnam, diplomatic ties have been fully restored. In others, such as North Korea, dialogue has resumed over the issue of the country's denuclearization. Relations with Iran were severed after the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy, and diplomatic contacts have occurred only sporadically since then. High-level contacts with Cuba remained a remote prospect in 2008 as an economic embargo continued over U.S. concern at political repression. [Bilateral] [China card] [Arrogance]
• New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging
  Published: June 4, 2008 Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs. The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. Some scientists are already taking resveratrol in capsule form, but others believe it is far too early to take the drug, especially using wine as its source, until there is better data on its safety and effectiveness. [Wine]
• The evisceration of a disarmament body
  Bob Rigg
  The chemical-weapons convention came into force on 29 April 1997. But the political manipulation of its lead organisation makes it hard for Bob Rigg, a former insider, to celebrate.27 - 04 - 2007 The Queen of the Netherlands will endanger her good reputation when she unveils a monument to the victims of chemical warfare at the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague on 29 April 2007, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the chemical-weapons convention (CWC). This is also the fifth anniversary of the firing, on 22 April 2002, of former OPCW Director-General José Bustani, which is not being officially commemorated. [UNUS]
• A giant backward step on Iran
  By Kaveh L Afrasiabi "We haven't seen indications or any concrete evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons and I've been saying that consistently for the last five years," Mohammad ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated last week at the World Economic Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Unfortunately, the only thing consistent about ElBaradei is his inconsistency, reflected in his subsequent report, just delivered to the United Nations Security Council, which has been widely interpreted as "a grim reminder that Tehran is pressing ahead with its nuclear program", to paraphrase a New York Times editorial; the editorial goes on to say that ElBaradei's report "expresses serious concern about evidence [outlined in 18 documents accompanying the report] that Iran is working on programs with clear military applications". The report said Iran continued to stonewall investigators looking into documents alleging its government researched atomic weapons. But, didn't the same respected chief of the UN's atomic agency admit in his earlier report, in February, that his agency "has no credible information" regarding the so-called "alleged weaponization" studies? What magic was pulled on the IAEA to bestow sudden legitimacy on the admittedly "unreliable" and "dubious" information (other than the heat of US pressure)? Is this now the end of the IAEA's hitherto heroic standing up to the external pressures that threatened to compromise its integrity? [IAEA] [UNUS] [Evidence] [Disinformation]
• How the Pentagon shapes the world
  By Frida Berrigan
  A full-fledged cottage industry is already focused on those who eagerly await the end of the George W Bush administration, offering calendars, magnets and t-shirts for sale as well as counters and graphics to download onto blogs and websites. But when the countdown ends and Bush vacates the Oval Office, he will leave a legacy to contend with. Certainly, he wills to his successor a world marred by war and battered by deprivation, but perhaps his most enduring legacy is now deeply embedded in Washington-area politics - a Pentagon metastasized almost beyond recognition. [Militarisation] [Arms sales] [Intelligence]
• US to impose stricter visa rule
  By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Published: June 2 2008 20:28 | Last updated: June 2 2008 23:13 Passengers travelling to the United States from countries whose citizens do not need visas must register online with the US government at least 72 hours before departure, in the latest measure to strengthen American security. The new rule is expected to be announced on Tuesday by Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security secretary, and take effect in January. EDITOR’S CHOICE Visitors leaving US face tighter security - Apr-22Brussels and US pledge visa-free travel - Mar-14US visa dispute divides the EU - Mar-12Visitors to Europe face fingerprinting - Feb-14New ID rules overwhelm US - Aug-15Agencies scramble to help business travellers - Aug-15European companies last year expressed concern after the Homeland Security department floated the idea of requiring passengers to register 48 hours in advance, believing it could complicate last-minute business travel. Although the new rule requires 72 hours advance registration, it will be valid for multiple entries over a two-year period.   [Surveillance]
• Both McCain, Obama exaggerating Iran's nuclear program
  More on this Story By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The presumptive Republican nominee for president and the leading contender for the Democratic nomination are exaggerating what's known about Iran's nuclear program as they duel over how best to deal with Tehran. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., say that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. intelligence community, however, thinks that Iran halted an effort to build a nuclear warhead in mid-2003, and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating the program, has found no evidence to date of an active Iranian nuclear-weapons project. The candidates' comments raise questions about how carefully the two have studied the public record on what's become a major campaign issue and is one of the most difficult foreign-policy challenges likely to confront the next president.
• Why Australia is leaving Iraq
  Prime Minister Rudd criticized the US justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq as 550 Australian troops packed up to leave.
  By Nick Squires | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the June 3, 2008 edition Sydney, Australia - Australia's prime minister said Monday that the reasons used to justify joining the war in Iraq turned out to be false. Labor leader Kevin Rudd made the remarks a day after ordering his country's 550 combat troops to head home after five years in Iraq. As one of the United States' staunchest allies, Australia was quick to pledge military support for the US-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003. But that decision was made by conservative prime minister John Howard, whose 11 years in office came to an end in November's election. Bringing home Australia's small but politically significant contingent of combat troops was one of Mr. Rudd's main election campaign pledges. He dismissed one by one the reasons used by the Howard administration – and by association the Bush administration – to topple Saddam Hussein.
  In response to Rudd's remarks, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters Monday that "we acted on the intelligence that we had.... No one else in the world, no other government, had different information and so we acted based on what was the threat that was presented to us." [Intelligence] [Disinformation]
• The World Is Upside Down
  By ROGER COHEN Published: June 2, 2008 For a while the world was flat. Now it’s upside down. To understand it, invert your thinking. See the developed world as depending on the developing world, rather than the other way round. Understand that two-thirds of global economic growth last year came from emerging countries, whose economies will expand about 6.7 percent in 2008, against 1.3 percent for the United States, Japan and euro zone states. The sharp rise in prices for energy, commodities, metals and minerals produced mainly in the developing world explains part of this shift. That has created the balance of payments surpluses fueling dollar-dripping sovereign wealth funds in the gulf and East Asia. They amuse themselves picking up a stake in BP here, a chunk of Morgan Stanley there, and why not a sliver of Total. We of the developed-world Paleolithic species are fair game for the upstarts now, our predator role exhausted. The U.S. and Europe may one day need all the charity they can get. [Decline]
• Hungry for Justice
  Sameer Dossani | May 30, 2008 When Paul Konar left his native India for the United States in 2006, he could never have imagined that less than two years later, he and several of his co-workers would be giving a lesson in Indian-style change making. Yet Konar, joined by his supporters and fellow fasters, has been on a vigil in Washington, DC for 17 days. He hasn’t eaten anything since May 14. "We have learned from Gandhi that when faced with injustice, non-violent non-cooperation is the way to create meaningful change," said Konar, speaking in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Dupont Circle. "By keeping this vigil we are letting the world know that this modern-day form of slavery, known as the H2B guest worker program, must end." An Industry of (False) Hope In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, an unknown number of workers were contacted by contractors around the world to come and help rebuild. Companies that had already been awarded huge contracts and incentives to set up shop in the Gulf Coast were being extra greedy – guest workers generally make about 60-80% of the prevailing wage for domestic workers. By using guest workers to implement their contracts, companies were ensuring extra padding in their profit margins while simultaneously breaking the back of the already weak organized labor movement. To implement this strategy, Signal International, a subcontractor of Northrop Grumman, had to find cheap and efficient skilled labor to build the ships that it was contracted to provide. The target country for finding these skilled workers? India – a country with a whole lot of skilled yet impoverished people. [Labour] [Migration]
• 'Leninists!' Cries Neocon Nabob, Suing for Divorce
  by Jim Lobe February 23, 2006 The Washington foreign policy elite finds itself on pins and needles this week awaiting a response from the neoconservative heavyweights at the Weekly Standard magazine to a scorching denunciation by one of their most venerable fellow travelers, Francis Fukuyama, in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Fukuyama, best known for his post-Cold War essay proclaiming the historic inevitability of liberal democracy, "The End of History," argued in the Times article that neoconservatives so badly miscalculated the myriad costs of the Iraq war that they may have empowered their two foreign policy nemeses – realists, who disdain democracy-promotion; and isolationists, who oppose foreign entanglements of almost any kind. Even more provocatively, Fukuyama called the Standard's editor, William Kristol, his ideological sidekick, Robert Kagan, and their neoconservative comrades who led the drive to war in Iraq "Leninist" in their conviction that liberal democracy can be achieved through "coercive regime change" or imposed by military means. [Decline] [Neocon]
• Democracy, Limited
  By DAVID E. SANGER Published: May 18, 2008 When Bill Clinton was in the twilight months of his presidency, he made a compelling case that by integrating China into the world economy we would gradually undercut the viability of its authoritarian government. It was only a matter of time, he told an audience of American and Chinese students in March 2000, before a Net-savvy, rising middle class would begin to demand its rights, because “when individuals have the power not just to dream, but to realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say.” Five years later, in his second Inaugural Address, George W. Bush added a more martial edge to the prediction that democracy was on an unstoppable tear around the world. It was only 22 months after the invasion of Iraq. Describing a grander justification for his mission, Bush declared that in a post-Iraq world it would become the mission of the United States to defeat tyranny and spread his “freedom agenda” around the world. Sovereign borders of authoritarian states, he made clear, would be no barrier. Robert Kagan, in a brief and wonderfully argued volume on how the world has a nasty habit of spinning off in its own directions, has a message for Americans of all political stripes: Good luck with that one. The cold war may be over, he declares in “The Return of History and the End of Dreams,” but anyone who thinks the result was really “the end of history” — a consensus that liberal democracy is the future — should take another look. “The world has become normal again,” Kagan says in the first sentence of what is less a book than an extended essay. Deeper in, he puts his argument more plainly: “Autocracy is making a comeback.” [Democracy] [Decline]
• The Return of History and the End of Dreams, by Robert Kagan
  The view from Camp McCain
  Reviewed by Mary Dejevsky Friday, 23 May 2008 No one could accuse this luminary of the American right of lacking modesty or ambition. In a neat 100 pages, Kagan declares an end to the "end of history" and a return to 19th-century great-power rivalry, with a dash of the Crusades (in reverse) thrown in. This is contemporary history as in the big picture and broad sweep, and – in an age when so much academic writing focuses on ever tinier particles – no worse for that. There is a place for those who see woods where others are distracted by trees. The publishers also deserve credit. This is an exquisitely-packaged volume, from the gilt cover, with Punch cartoon of British lion, Russian bear and "scared Johnny Chinaman", to the antique typeface. Some very 21st-century typos have survived, but the whole exudes the authority that makes for a book demanding to be read. The question that teases is how much substance resides between these handsome covers. Kagan rejects Francis Fukuyama's pronouncement of the end of history, or at least regards it as superseded rather than ill-conceived. But this is by no means new. Indeed, one senses among many American commentators an irritation that it was Fukuyama, not they, who coined such a seductive (and marketable) phrase. So each looks to make his mark by contradicting it in his own way. Kagan's way is to see a new form of great-power competition, between democracies and autocracies, where the US represents the democratic pole, and Russia and China are examples of autocracy. In later chapters, he discusses the challenge presented by fundamentalist Islam, only to dismiss religion as a lesser force, long- term, than the contest between democracy and autocracy. Kagan's big idea is that autocratic forms of government, allied to the concept of national sovereignty, are storming back after a period in which national borders were dissolving and brotherhood of man was all the rage. The US, he avers, will remain a great power, but it will have to learn to operate in a changed global context. [Decline] [US foreign policy]
• After Neoconservatism
  By FRANCIS FUKUYAMA Published: February 19, 2006 As we approach the third anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war, it seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention itself or the ideas animating it kindly. By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadist terrorists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at. The United States still has a chance of creating a Shiite-dominated democratic Iraq, but the new government will be very weak for years to come; the resulting power vacuum will invite outside influence from all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran. There are clear benefits to the Iraqi people from the removal of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and perhaps some positive spillover effects in Lebanon and Syria. But it is very hard to see how these developments in themselves justify the blood and treasure that the United States has spent on the project to this point. [Decline] [Neocon]
• Pentagon planning ‘boots on ground’ in Waziristan
  * Columnist says US readying to attack Iran * Washington desperate to keep President Musharraf in power Daily Times Monitor WASHINGTON: “So alarmed is the Pentagon, that Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ plans to send US ground forces into the FATA are being rapidly advanced,” writes journalist Eric Margolis in his syndicated column read worldwide. “Apparently, Washington’s criticism of Islamabad’s recent peace deals in the tribal territories has sharply intensified. American conservatives are claiming Pakistan has ‘sold out’ to Al Qaeda and Taliban, and is sheltering Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts.” US fears: Margolis writes about Washington’s desperate efforts to keep President Pervez Musharraf afloat because it fears that a fully civilianised government in Islamabad would be more responsive to anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and wash its hands of the war on terror at a time when more, not less, Pakistani support is needed to help US troops in Afghanistan confront the Taliban summer offensive. “Musharraf’s slow-motion fall from power has also wrong-footed Washington because it was counting on using US bases there in the event of an attack on Iran,” reveals Margolis. “The US capitol is again buzzing with rumours of an impending air campaign against at least 3,000 targets in Iran that will be launched sometime before November elections to boost the fortunes of the embattled Republicans. Israel’s American supporters are waging an all-out campaign for war against Iran. This week, they began running TV commercials claiming Iran was attacking the United States.”
• The Math of Myanmar's Survival: 5-15-30
  To understand what’s going on now, and what the Myanmar government is doing, one needs only to understand three numbers: 5% 15% 30
  The five percent of Myanmar’s population affected by cyclone Nargis accounts for roughly 15% of the rice produced in the country. For that 15% to get harvested, all the seed has to be in the ground by July 30 to catch the summer monsoon. What the Myanmar government has to do is quite simple. It has to get the cyclone victims out of the relief camps and back into their villages, hope they can scrape together the bare necessities of shelter and food to sustain a working life, get them the wherewithal to plow and seed their fields, and make sure they finish up the planting in eight weeks from today—and twelve weeks after the worst natural disaster in the country’s history.
• US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships
  Report says 17 boats used · MPs seek details of UK role · Europe attacks 42-day plan Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Monday June 2 2008 Article history An amphibious assault vehicle leaves the USS Peleliu, which was used to detain prisoners, according to the human rights group Reprieve. Photograph: Zack Baddor/AP The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees. Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained. [Human rights]
• Scars and stripes
  By Karen J Greenberg
  Published: May 30 2008 21:08 | Last updated: May 30 2008 21:08 Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law By Philippe Sands Allen Lane £20, 315 pages FT Bookshop price: £16
  Torture and Democracy By Darius M Rejali Princeton University Press £23.95, 880 pages FT Bookshop price: £18.95
  Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad By Marnia Lazreg Princeton University Press £17.95, 354 pages FT Bookshop price: £14.95
  In April 2004, the American TV news exposé 60 Minutes aired a now infamous set of photographs depicting torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Images of US servicemen and women taunting prisoners with leashes and dogs, and of a hooded man connected to electrodes, overnight brought the word torture into present-day consciousness. Weeks later, a US Department of Defense paper, the Taguba Report, catalogued countless instances of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib. The photos, it seemed, hinted at just a small part of a larger policy of coercive interrogation. Since then, investigations and rebuttals have created two battling narratives over this issue, between law and action. The law is clear. In the US torture – defined as an act intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering – is illegal. Under international law it is also illegal. Yet the Bush administration continues to defend itself in words and legislation. And while laws have been passed to accommodate the administration – the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act – the US Supreme Court refuses to support circumventing international law. How has the world’s leading democracy, a model for the ideal that power and decency reinforce one another, become the place where torture is debated rather than outlawed? How is it that a religiously devout president has justified torture by American hands? [Human rights]
• U.S. Africa Command Trims Its Aspirations
  Nations Loath to Host Force; Aid Groups Resisted Military Plan to Take On Relief Work
  By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 1, 2008; Page A18 The U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America's image and prevent terrorist inroads on the continent, has scaled back its ambitions after African governments refused to host it and aid groups protested plans to expand the military's role in economic development in the region. Africom, due to begin operations Oct. 1, will now be based for the foreseeable future in Stuttgart, Germany, with five smaller regional offices planned for the continent on hold while the military searches for places to put them.
• Going Their Own Way in The Mideast
  By David Ignatius Sunday, June 1, 2008; Page B07 What happens when a superpower becomes preoccupied by a costly war and loses some of its ability to coerce friends and enemies toward the outcomes it favors? We're seeing a demonstration of that change now in the Middle East, as Arabs and even Israel reckon with the limits of American power -- and begin to cut their own deals. The new power dynamic is clear in two developments over the past several weeks -- the Lebanon peace deal brokered by Qatar on May 21 and the Israel-Syria peace talks, with Turkish mediation, that were announced the same day. Both negotiations could help stabilize the region, albeit not on the terms the United States might prefer. [Decline]
• 'This is not the way I should have been treated in a country I love'
  Held over al-Qaida manual used for research, Hicham Yezza gives first interview Polly Curtis and Anthea Lipsett Saturday May 31, 2008 The Guardian
  Nottingham South MP Alan Simpson joins students as they protest against the imminent deportation of Algerian Hicham Yezza on Wednesday. Authorities later relented. Photographer: Rui Vieira For more than a decade, Nottingham university felt like the safest place in the world for Hicham Yezza as an undergraduate, doctoral student, campus activist and, most recently, employee. But two weeks ago his world caved in when he was arrested under the Terrorism Act. The 30-year-old Algerian was detained by police for possessing a copy of the al-Qaida training manual that he had been given to print by a friend researching the terrorist group's techniques for his MA. University officials called in the police after a colleague noticed the document on his computer. Yezza and his friend, 22-year-old student Rizwaan Sabir, were held for six days despite Sabir's tutors giving statements within two days that the document was directly relevant to his research. They were released without charge, but up until a last-minute reprieve yesterday Yezza had been threatened with deportation on Sunday, charged with a separate immigration offence. The chain of events has made him a martyr to academic freedom in the eyes of a growing campaign group of lecturers and students, who say that the government's anti-terror agenda is putting pressure on universities to spy on their members to monitor signs of extremism. [Human rights] [Global insurgency]
• Oops, we didn't mean Malaysians are terrorists - marines in retreat after gaffe·
  Recruitment film showed enemy speaking Malay · MoD apologies for causing offence with web video Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Saturday May 31 2008 Article historyBy reputation it's one of the toughest units in the British armed forces, renowned for feats of endurance and derring-do. But a high-octane recruiting film for the Royal Marines forced the Ministry of Defence into headlong retreat yesterday, after complaints that it portrayed one of the most peaceable countries in Asia as a breeding ground for Islamist terrorists. Officials apologised to Malaysia for the offending video, which was used in cinemas and on the MoD's website until it was withdrawn yesterday.
  The film, which was made in Brunei while the marines were on exercises last year, featured a Malay man as a terrorist toting a Kalashnikov, who is being pursued by a group of marines in the jungle. "I am the most evil man in the world. Come fight with me. I will kill you all," the actor said in Malay. [Global insurgency] [Victim]
• Bush backs Musharraf as Pakistani leader's support wanes
  By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Bush reached out Friday to support longtime ally Pervez Musharraf, calling the embattled Pakistani president to assure him of continued U.S. backing. Musharraf's demise is now considered almost a foregone conclusion in Pakistan, but Bush's intervention appeared to be a powerful signal that Washington wouldn't welcome Musharraf's exit. "The president reiterated the United States' strong support for Pakistan, and he indicated he looked forward to President Musharraf's continuing role in further strengthening U.S.-Pakistani relations," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in Washington. Pakistan is abuzz with speculation that Musharraf's attempts to cling to power have collapsed as his enemies step up their attacks and even his supposed allies have gone silent. The rumors reached fever pitch in the last few days with stories of a rift between the president and army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, forcing Musharraf to deny any differences with the military [Democracy] [Double standards]
• Hard-Line Lunacy on Cuba
  By Eugene Robinson Saturday, May 31, 2008; Page A13 For nearly five decades, the United States has pursued a policy toward Cuba that could be described as incredibly stupid. It could also be called childish and counterproductive -- and, since the demise of the Soviet Union, even insane. Absent the threat of communist expansionism, the refusal by successive American presidents to engage with Cuba has not even a fig leaf's worth of rationale to cover its naked illogic. Other than providing Fidel Castro with a convenient antagonist to help whip up nationalist fervor on the island -- and prolong his rule -- the U.S. trade embargo and other sanctions have accomplished nothing. Now, with Fidel ailing and retired, and his brother Raúl acting large and in charge, the United States has its best opportunity in years to influence the course of events on the island. George W. Bush, as one might have expected, won't do the right thing. It will be up to the next president. [Sanctions]

• The Next Fault Line in Foreign Policy Combat: "The U.S. Matters" vs. "No, It Really Doesn't"
  Monday, Apr 28 2008, 8:23AM -- Steve Clemons
  Kishore Mahbubani and G. John Ikenberry may not know it -- but they are squaring off to be the new top tier rival powerhouse intellectual combatants. They each basically stand at the forefront of rival intellectual movements about the relative relevance of American power in the world -- Mahbubani heading the school that the West is in self-denial about its plummeting significance and Ikenberry heading those who think American power remains palpably larger than any other player and is still the key factor in driving international behavior for all other countries. [decline]
• G. John Ikenberry responds: The Rise of Asia and the West
  Tuesday, May 06 2008, 4:34PM Note from Steve Clemons: This is a guest post by G. John Ikenberry who is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. My personal thanks to Ikenberry and to Kishore Mahbubani and others for engaging in this debate -- as I can think of few other topics more important than theirs for the country to wrestle with. From G. John Ikenberry: Steve Clemons has provoked me to write about the "next fault line" in the foreign policy debate - "The U.S. Matters" vs. "No, It Really Doesn't" - by responding to Kishore Mahbubani's provocative new book. Kishore is a good friend and he is one of the smartest and most insightful public intellectuals on the scene today. So it is a pleasure to exchange ideas with him. Kishore and I clearly have major points of agreement. These include many of his general themes: that the rise of Asia is perhaps the seminal macro-historical event of our era; that we are witnessing an extraordinary renaissance in Asian societies; and that Asia has a lot that it can bring - experience, resources, a huge portion of humanity - to the collective management of world order. But I disagree with Kishore on other themes he advances, particularly his argument that the West is somehow impeding or resisting the rise of Asia. [Decline]
• The Debate on East vs. West Continues: Anne-Marie Slaughter Challenges Mahbubani
  Wednesday, May 28 2008, 12:49PM This is the third installment in a debate that The Washington Note is hosting between Kishore Mahbubani and other of the world's premier intellectuals on international affairs -- including G. John Ikenberry, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Parag Khanna, Michael Lind, and others. In response to Mahbubani's latest book, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, I attempted to trigger a debate between Mahbubani, on one hand, who said that the rest is going to have to come to terms with its declining role in global affairs and the fact that it will no longer have a monopoly on writing the world's history and on the other, G. John Ikenberry and others. Ikenberry thinks that America and the West still possess a disproportionate share of global power. G. John Ikenberry offered his first response to Mahbubani here. Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter's response follows below -- and Mahbubani's response to both will be posted tomorrow. Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. The following is a guest post by Anne-Marie Slaughter. I will forgive Steve Clemons for trying to find a new job for one of my most valued faculty members, John Ikenberry - Steve may think he would be perfect to be the next head of the Carnegie Endowment, but we at Princeton are very happy to have him right where he is. Turning to the matter at hand, however, I will second John in my personal admiration and friendship for Kishore Mahbubani. I will add that Kishore loves to play the provocateur, and his analysis of Asia's inevitable rise and America's imminent decline should be read in that light. He has already ruffled the feathers of many of his former colleagues in the Singapore foreign office, some of whom are giving speeches warning against "Asian triumphalism." From my point of view, triumphalism goes before a fall in both East and West, so Kishore should be wary of Asia's catching America's disease. But three quick points in response to Kishore. [Decline]
• Mahbubani Responds: Western Intellectual and Moral Cowardice on Israel/Palestine is "Stunning"
  Thursday, May 29 2008, 8:19AM The following is the fourth installment in an evolving series of guest commentaries on an original post on The Washington Note titled "The Next Fault Line in Foreign Policy Combat: "The U.S. Matters" vs. "No, It Really Doesn't". This guest post and response is offered by former State Secretary of Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Singapore Ambassador to the United Nations Kishore Mahbubani. Mahbubani, who now serves as Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore has authored the new book, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. Mahbubani also published this Foreign Affairs article, "The Case Against the West" that offers in abbreviated form some of the key points in his book.
  John Ikenberry is spot on when he stated at the outset "Kishore and I clearly have major points of agreement". Indeed, I may agree with John more than he thinks. In addition to agreement on the seminal importance of the rise of Asia, I also agree with the three big points he makes in his Foreign Affairs article, namely that we should reaffirm and strengthen the Western-led post-war global order; that China will be tomorrow's (if not today's) greatest supporter of this order and that America should prepare well for a post-American world order. I deeply respect and admire both John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter. They are formidable scholars who have the right instincts and approaches toward current global challenges. I hope that their voices will be the dominant voices of the next Obama Administration. If that happens, the world will be a safer and better place. I want their voices to become stronger in our world. [Decline] [Double standards]
• Put the Proliferation Security Initiative Under the UN
  By Mark J. Valencia May 29th, 2008 Mark J. Valencia, a Maritime Policy Analyst and a Nautilus Institute Senior Associate, writes, “If PSI effectiveness is not dramatically improved, WMD and related materials will continue to fall into the ‘wrong’ hands… It is time to move beyond the ‘loose arrangement’ dominated by the United States. Gains must be consolidated and legitimacy enhanced, thus attracting broader and more robust PSI participation. This could be achieved by providing PSI with a concrete structure under UN auspices.” [PSI] [UNUS]
• Exposing Washington's spinning permanent campaign
  By TERENCE HUNT – 2 days ago WASHINGTON (AP) — In a White House full of Bush loyalists, none was more loyal than Scott McClellan, the bland press secretary who spread the company line for all the government to follow each day. His word, it turns out, was worthless, his confessional memoir a glimpse into Washington's world of spin and even outright deception. Instead of effective government, Americans were subjected to a "permanent campaign" that was "all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage," McClellan writes in a book stunning for its harsh criticism of Bush. "Presidential initiatives from health care programs to foreign invasions are regularly devised, named, timed and launched with one eye (or both eyes) on the electoral calendar." [Disinformation]
• McClellan's Damning Portrait of the President and His Team
  By Kenneth T. Walsh Posted May 30, 2008 White House press secretaries are usually the most loyal of staffers, even after they leave office. They owe their fame and upward mobility to the presidents who appointed them, so they tend to remain supportive of their bosses no matter what. Not so with Scott McClellan. His new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, is a broadside not only against the policies of the administration he once spoke for but also against President George W. Bush himself. In two decades of covering the presidency, I've never seen a former press secretary turn against his patrons so dramatically and so thoroughly. At a Smithsonian seminar, four past press secretaries—Tony Snow, Joe Lockhart, Marlin Fitzwater, and Jody Powell—said they believed that once you are part of a White House "family," you should always stay true to it.
  How things have changed. [Disinformation]
• Uncomfortable truths for a new world of them and us
  By Philip Stephens
  Published: May 29 2008 17:47 | Last updated: May 29 2008 17:47     Globalisation belonged to us; financial crises happened to them.
  The world has been turned on its head. Consumers in the wealthiest nations are struggling with the consequences of the credit crunch and with the soaring cost of energy and food. In China, retail sales have been rising at an annual 15 per cent. I cannot think of a better description of the emerging global order. The trouble is that the politics of globalisation lags ever further behind the economics   The parameters of globalisation were set by the west. Liberalisation of trade and capital flows was a project owned largely by the US. It was not quite an imperialist enterprise, but, while everyone was supposed to gain from economic integration, the unspoken assumption was that the biggest benefits would flow to the richest. The rules were set out in something called, unsurprisingly, the Washington Consensus. [Globalisation] [Decline]
• Time to talk to al-Qaida, senior police chief urges
  Vikram Dodd, crime correspondent The Guardian, Friday May 30 2008 Article historyBritain should negotiate with leaders of al-Qaida as part of a new strategy to end its violent campaign, one of the country's most senior police officers has said. Speaking to the Guardian, Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said the experiences of his force tackling the IRA had convinced him that policing alone - detecting plots and arresting people - would not defeat al-Qaida inspired terrorism. Orde, the frontrunner to be the next commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said he could not think of a single terrorism campaign in history that ended without negotiation.   [Bilateral] [Global insurgency]
• Memo to Scott McClellan: Here's what happened
  May 29, 2008 Until now, we've resisted the temptation to post on former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book, which accuses the Bush White House of launching a propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq. Why? It's not news. At least not to some of us who've covered the story from the start. (Click here, here and here to get just a taste of what we mean). Second, we find it a wee bit preposterous -- and we are being diplomatic here -- that a man who slavishly - no, robotically! -- defended President Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere is trying to "set the record straight" (and sell a few books) five years and more after the invasion, with U.S. troops still bravely fighting and dying to stabilize that country. But the responses to McClellan from the Bush administration and media bigwigs, history-bending as they are, compel us to jump in. As we like to say around here, it's truth to power time, not just for the politicians but also for some folks in our own business.  
  the Pentagon tells the media what kind of reporting is in- and out-of-bounds? Hogwash. Hogwash! HOGWASH. We confess that here at McClatchy, which purchased Knight Ridder two years ago, we do have a dog in this fight. Our team - Joe Galloway, Clark Hoyt, Jon Landay, Renee Schoof, Warren Strobel, John Walcott, Tish Wells and many others - was, with a few exceptions, the only major news media organization that before the war consistently and aggressively challenged the White House's case for war, and its lack of planning for post-war Iraq.   [Media] [Disinformation]  
• U.S. Withdraws Fulbright Grants to Gaza
  By ETHAN BRONNER Published: May 30, 2008 GAZA — The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.
• Bush's Two Faces,
  by Hong Jun-ho Iran now sits at the center of the security debate in the U.S. presidential campaign. By not concealing its intent to develop nuclear weapons and backing insurgents in Iraq, the U.S. feels Iran has emerged as a new power in the Middle East, threatening America’s interests, not least Israel. The question how to deal with Iran has emerged as the biggest headache as the U.S. remains mired in Iraq, to the point that newspaper speak of a new cold war with Tehran. [Bilateral]
• Quake blunder is bad karma for Dior
  By Geoff Dyer in Beijing Published: May 28 2008 18:46 | Last updated: May 28 2008 18:46 Christian Dior was scrambling on Wednesday to avoid a new Chinese consumer backlash over Tibet after the actress Sharon Stone, who is a model for the group, suggested the Sichuan earthquake might have been retribution for China’s policies in Tibet. The luxury goods group apologised to its Chinese customers on Wednesday after the 50-year-old American actress said the earthquake in Sichuan province two weeks ago, which has killed at least 68,109 people, was the result of "karma" from China’s policies in Tibet. In a statement from its China headquarters, Dior said: "We absolutely disagree with her hasty comments and we are also deeply sorry about them ... We will never support any opinion that hurts the feeling of the Chinese people." Dior in Paris declined to comment. Ms Stone made her comments during a visit to the Cannes film festival last week. She told a Hong Kong TV channel: "And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma – when you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?" asked Ms Stone, who said she was "unhappy" with the way China was dealing with Tibet. The comments gained wider attention after the footage was posted on YouTube and similar Chinese video-sharing sites prompting a wave of indignation among internet users in China. [Consumer boycott] [IM]
• Bolton dodges attempted 'war crimes' arrest
  Michael White Thursday May 29, 2008 The Guardian   The environmental campaigner George Monbiot last night tried and failed to make a citizen's arrest of the former Bush administration official John Bolton over alleged "war crimes" committed during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, ended an hour-long discussion at the Hay festival, Monbiot, who had earlier challenged him for alleged breaches of the postwar Nuremberg Principles, defining war crimes, moved towards the stage waving a charge sheet. But security staff intervened and bundled Monbiot out of the tent as 20 supporters chanted "war criminal" and waved placards. The comedian Marcus Brigstocke, who tried to pursue Bolton as he left the other side of the tent, was also blocked by security staff.
• U.S. Experts Bemoan Nation's Loss of Stature in the World of Science
  By Keith B. RichburgWashington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 29, 2008; Page A04 NEW YORK, May 28 -- Some of the nation's leading scientists, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top science adviser, today sharply criticized the diminished role of science in the United States and the shortage of federal funding for research, even as science becomes increasingly important to combating problems such as climate change and the global food shortage. Speaking at a science summit that opens this week's first World Science Festival, the expert panel of scientists, and audience members, agreed that the United States is losing stature because of a perceived high-level disdain for science. They cited U.S. officials and others questioning scientific evidence of climate change, the reluctance to federally fund stem cell research, and some U.S. officials casting doubt on evolution as examples that have damaged America's international standing. [Decline]
• US-made oil disaster has mileage
  By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene
  depreciating dollar and rising oil prices have gone hand-in-hand. Oil prices are quoted in dollars; a falling dollar results in an increasing dollar price for oil. Given a falling dollar, oil producers and others with surplus dollars are reluctant to store their wealth in dollars but instead are diversifying into other currencies, largely the euro and the yen, again putting further pressure on the dollar and again driving up oil prices; or in some cases producers cut back output as they are reluctant to hold more dollars. [Reserve]
• A world beyond control
  Paul Rogers
  The United States and military is planning for the long-term challenge of low-intensity insurgent warfare. But its thinking remains locked in the past (This article was first published on 22 May 2008) 23 - 05 - 2008 George W Bush used the occasion of his speech to the Knesset on 15 May 2008, marking the sixtieth anniversary of Israel's foundation, to liken a willingness to negotiate with Iran with appeasing the Nazis - a remark clearly aimed at Barack Obama, even if the favourite to win the Democratic Party's nomination for the United States presidency was unnamed in Bush's address. The US president's political intervention in the contest for his successor created a brief media and political firestorm that was in two ways not necessarily to the benefit of his presumptive Republican heir, John McCain. First, in highlighting the continued perceived threat of a leading member of the "axis of evil" outlined in his state-of-the-union address of January 2002, George W Bush gave Barack Obama the opportunity to make the point that the war in Iraq has had the effect of increasing Iran's influence in the region. Second, and related, in thus propelling the Iraq war back into the election campaign Bush's remark focused attention on the contrast between Obama's opposition to the war and John McCain's support for it, and for a longer-term American military presence in Iraq. Indeed, McCain is preparing for the coming challenge with his probable Democratic adversary by outlining a confident vision of Iraq in 2012 - towards the end of his presumed first term in office. A sustained US military effort, he argues, will ensure that the war will by then largely be won in an Iraq more peaceful and democratic, thus allowing the troops to return home 2013. Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001 McCain's assessment is the most optimistic view of Iraqi trends offered by an establishment conservative politician to the American people - yet it is a measure of how much the nature of "optimism" has been tempered by Iraqi realities that the would-be president expects the United States still to be immersed in the region nine years after the war began. Moreover, even though this scenario is so distant from widespread expectations in the pro-war camp of immediate victory in early 2003, most analysts (those on the neo-conservative wing excepted) now see it as about the best imaginable from the US perspective. A more prevalent outlook is that a low-intensity conflict will continue in Iraq for many years to come in which the US cannot but be engaged (see "The Iraqi whirlwind", 7 April 2008) [Military industrial complex] [Global insurgency]
• Kosovo to Kashmir: the self-determination dilemma
  Sumantra Bose
  The debate over Kosovo has highlighted deep divisions in the international system on the issue of self-determination of peoples. Solutions to self-determination disputes lie in compromises that embody a mix of realpolitik and principle, says Sumantra Bose. 22 - 05 - 2008 Consider this sequence of events. The central government of a country removes the political leadership of an autonomous province of the country in a purge-like act. It then sets about revoking the self-rule powers of the province, which has a different ethno-religious majority from the population of the country as a whole. Public protests in the province are met with heavy-handed police tactics. A repressive regime is instituted in the province, with both democratic institutions and the civil rights of citizens effectively suspended.Sumantra Bose is professor of international and comparative politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His books include Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention (Oxford University Press, 2002), Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace (Harvard University Press, 2003) and Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka (Harvard University Press, 2007) Also by Sumantra Bose in openDemocracy: "Contested lands: paths to progress" (14 May 2007) "Uttar Pradesh: India's democratic landslip" (29 May 2007) "Sri Lanka's stalemated conflict" (12 June 2007) "The partition evasion" (23 August 2007) Eventually, political radicalisation sets in and some among the misruled province's younger generation pick up the gun to fight for "liberation". The nascent insurgency draws a fierce response from the state's military and police organs. The security forces crack down hard, and in so doing victimise the civilian population. Massacres of civilians and other serious abuses occur. The militants are not stamped out; instead, their struggle evokes large-scale popular support. A major crisis has developed. This may read like a potted history of Kosovo between 1989 and 1999. It is, however, a potted history of Indian policy towards Kashmir, and its consequences, between 1953 and 1990. So do the United States and its allies in Europe support self-determination for Kashmir, and threaten multilateral intervention to that end? [Separatism] [Double standards]
• UBS tells unit staff to avoid US visits
  By Haig Simonian in Zurich Published: May 27 2008 23:30 | Last updated: May 27 2008 23:30 UBS has told members of its former private banking team responsible for rich US clients not to travel to America. The Swiss bank has also made lawyers available to the more than 50 bankers involved, many of whom have left UBS since it decided last November to wind down its cross-border private banking business for US customers [Corruption]
• Transcript McCain’s Speech in Denver
  Published: May 27, 2008  
  Kennedy's warning resonates more today than ever before. North Korea pursues a nuclear weapons program to the point where, today, the dictator Kim Jong Il has tested a nuclear weapon and almost certainly possesses several more nuclear warheads. And it has shared its nuclear and missile know-how with others, including Syria. It's a vital national interest for the North Korean nuclear program to be completely, verifiably and irreversibly ended. [Partisan]    
• Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq
  By Michael D. Shear Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 28, 2008; Page A01 Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war." McClellan includes the charges in a 341-page book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade. He describes Bush as demonstrating a "lack of inquisitiveness," says the White House operated in "permanent campaign" mode, and admits to having been deceived by some in the president's inner circle about the leak of a CIA operative's name. [Disinformation]
• The Fading of the Mirage Economy
  By Steven Pearlstein Wednesday, May 28, 2008; Page D01 Suddenly, it seems, we're getting hit from all directions. Energy and food prices   Is all this the end of the world? For the richest country on the planet, certainly not. But it does represent the end of a decade or more during which Americans were permitted and even encouraged by the rest of the world -- and by their own leaders -- to live way beyond their means. As a result, the United States has gone from being the largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor. For the first time since the early 1980s, Americans will have to endure several years of uncomfortably slow growth and uncomfortably high inflation as the U.S. economy regains its balance and creates a foundation for more solid and sustainable growth. [Decline]
• Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed
  By NATHAN THRALL and JESSE JAMES WILKINS Published: May 22, 2008 IN his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s special assistant, called those sentences “the distinctive note” of the inaugural.
  But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” [Bilateral]
• President Bush Addresses Members of the Knesset
  The Knesset Jerusalem 2:55 P.M. (Local) THE PRESIDENT: President Peres and Mr. Prime Minister, Madam Speaker, thank very much for hosting this special session. President Beinish, Leader of the Opposition Netanyahu, Ministers, members of the Knesset, distinguished guests: Shalom. Laura and I are thrilled to be back in Israel. We have been deeply moved by the celebrations of the past two days. And this afternoon, I am honored to stand before one of the world's great democratic assemblies and convey the wishes of the American people with these words: Yom Ha'atzmaut Sameach. (Applause.)
  Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.) [Bilateral]
• Jail growth explodes as Feds crack down on illegal migrants>
    DEL RIO, Texas — Many in Congress are counting on border walls to discourage illegal immigration and dope smuggling from Mexico. Here in Del Rio, Texas, authorities are using prison walls instead. The ever-expanding Val Verde County jail is filled with would-be yardmen and maids, immigrants awaiting deportation. They've been caught in a law enforcement dragnet known as "Operation Streamline,'' a zero tolerance program that began here and has since spread both east and west along the Mexican border.  
  Eight years ago, for example, the Val Verde Correctional Facility had only 180 beds. This year, after completing its second 600-bed expansion, the maximum security jail has room for 1,425 prisoners, an increase of almost 800 percent. While the state prisoner population has remained flat at about 70 to 80 a day on average, the numbers serving time for immigration and drug offenses have skyrocketed, officials say.   [Refugee reception] [Human rights]
• New rules for the Middle East
  By Rami G. Khouri Published: May 26, 2008
  BEIRUT: The accord that has resolved the immediate political crisis in Lebanon is the latest example of the new political power equation that is redefining the Middle East. It reflects both local and global forces, and 18 years after the Cold War ended, provides a glimpse of what the post-Cold War world will look like - at least in the Middle East. Several dynamics seem to be at play, but one stands out as paramount: We are witnessing the clear limits of the projection of American global power, combined with the assertion and coexistence of multiple regional powers (Turkey, Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas, Saudi Arabia, etc.). These local powers tend to fight and negotiate at the same time, and ultimately prefer to make reasonable compromises rather than perpetually wage absolutist battles. The Doha accord for Lebanon was much more than simply a victory for Iranian-backed Hezbollah over the American-backed alliance. It is the first concrete example in the Arab world of a negotiated, formal political agreement by local adversaries to share power and make big national decisions collectively, while maintaining close strategic relationships with diverse external patrons in the United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The Lebanese agreement (unlike the failed Fatah-Hamas unity government) is likely to succeed because all the parties know that to live together peacefully they must make mutual compromises. This accord has been forged in the furnace of Middle Eastern demographic and political realism, in contrast to the hallucinatory absolutism that often drives American-Israeli policy in this region.
  This is not a full defeat for the United States - it's more like a draw. [Decline]
• The Wars We Choose to Ignore
  By DAVID CARR Published: May 26, 2008 Gen. John A. Logan was a Union officer, a fierce Republican partisan, an early advocate of the kind of volunteer army the United States now fights wars with. He is also one of the people credited with coming up with the holiday that we celebrate today. A statue in Logan Circle in Washington shows the general on horseback flanked by two female figures said to represent America at war and America at peace. Given public indifference to a war that refuses to end, perhaps a third statue should be added: America at peace with being at war.   [Media]
• Manufacturing a Food Crisis
  By Walden Bello This article appeared in the June 2, 2008 edition of The Nation. May 15, 2008 When tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a 60 percent increase in the price of tortillas, many analysts pointed to biofuel as the culprit. Because of US government subsidies, American farmers were devoting more and more acreage to corn for ethanol than for food, which sparked a steep rise in corn prices. The diversion of corn from tortillas to biofuel was certainly one cause of skyrocketing prices, though speculation on biofuel demand by transnational middlemen may have played a bigger role. However, an intriguing question escaped many observers: how on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place [Globalisation] [Food security]
• Lunch with the FT: Henry Kissinger
  By Stephen Graubard
  Published: May 23 2008 20:20 | Last updated: May 24 2008 03:05
  Had there been a Rockefeller v Kennedy contest in 1964, Kissinger says, "I would of course have supported Rockefeller", but, surprisingly, he makes it surprisingly clear that a Kennedy victory would not have dismayed him. Kennedy and Rockefeller, he says, "agreed on major foreign policy questions, with no ideological issues separating them".  
  Kissinger says. "If we withdraw from Iraq, the radical elements in all the neighbouring Arab countries will be greatly encouraged." We will, he fears, be unable to maintain ourselves in Afghanistan, or to retain our present position in Pakistan. He fears a rapid withdrawal could radicalise the vast Islamic community in India. I am fascinated by this statement – I have never heard anyone else say it so robustly – and suggest that he argued in a similar vein about the dangers of a departure from Vietnam
  Secondly, because they are likely to be a permanent factor in the world, the dominant or most influential actor in their region of the world that has become so important economically and geopolitically, it becomes the most serious challenge for us, as relations with the United States are for them.
  "Some here in the United States believe that if we democratise China, they will become more tractable. This assumes that we know what democratise means. Is it indeed likely that they will become more pliable?" Clearly, he doubts this. [Democracy] [China card]
• When Kennedy Met With Khrushchev
  Letters
  To the Editor: To the Editor: Nathan Thrall and Jesse James Wilkins argue that President John F. Kennedy’s disastrous summit meeting with Nikita S. Khrushchev was a result of the president’s naïve rush to meet with an enemy leader.
  There was another factor — Kennedy may well have been high on amphetamines.
  As Lawrence K. Altman and I reported in The New York Times on Dec. 4, 1972, Kennedy was accompanied to the summit by Dr. Max Jacobson, a physician who routinely injected the stimulant into many prominent figures. Dr. Jacobson told us that he injected Kennedy there. White House records confirm that the doctor was on that trip. It is not certain that the shots contained "speed," but Dr. Feelgood, as patients called him, is known routinely to have mixed amphetamines into his potions. The drug causes not only feelings of euphoria but also an exaggerated sense of power and superiority. Boyce Rensberger North Reading, Mass., May 22, 2008 The writer was a science reporter at The New York Times, 1971-79. [drugs]
• Russia and China join to condemn U.S. missile shield
  By Edward Wong and Alan Cowell Published: May 24, 2008
  BEIJING: President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia and President Hu Jintao of China met Friday to conclude a deal on nuclear cooperation and together condemn U.S. proposals for a missile shield in Europe. Both countries called the U.S. plan a setback to international trust that was likely to upset the balance of power. Medvedev's choice of China for an early diplomatic foray as president seemed to signal a desire to continue Moscow's assertive foreign policy - particularly toward the United States - that was a hallmark of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, during his eight years in office. [China-Russia relations] [Missile defense]
• Voice of the people
  Gore Vidal: 'This country is finished. But, with a new republic like this, if you missed being here at the beginning, the next best thing is to be here at the end'. Interview by James Campbell
  Saturday May 24, 2008 The Guardian   'The honest savage' ... Gore Vidal. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe   Gore Vidal's collected essays, United States, a hefty volume incorporating the work of four decades in the form in which he is a modern master, won the US National Book Award for 1993. "It is the ugliest prize ever given to me," says the author, gesturing with a brandy snifter towards the room in which the unloved object stands. "It's two bronze cubes, my name is not on it, there's no identification of what it is. It's just like the country that gave it to me. Blank."http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2890226
• Obama electrifies Cuban exile group, long a GOP mainstay
  MIAMI — The prominent Cuban-American organization that Republican President Ronald Reagan once counted on to secure victory in Florida was electrified on Friday by an appearance by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama
• Mideast negotiations now bypassing Washington
  By Warren P. Strobel and Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — In a week of dramatic developments in the Middle East, the most dramatic development of all may have been the fact that the United States, long considered the region's indispensable player, was missing in action. As its closest allies cut deals with their adversaries this week over the Bush administration's opposition, Washington was largely reduced to watching. More painfully for President Bush, friends he's cultivated — and spent heavily on — in Lebanon and Iraq asked the United States to remain in the background, underlining how politically toxic an association with the U.S. can be for Arab leaders. [Decline]
• Race for presidency ignores arms race
  Last updated May 22, 2008 4:29 p.m. PT AMY GOODMAN SYNDICATED COLUMNIST As the U.S. presidential race continues, so does the arms race worldwide. People -- civilians, children -- are being killed and maimed, on a daily basis, by unexploded cluster bombs and land mines. Thousands of nuclear missiles remain at hair-trigger alert. The U.S. government rattles its saber at Iran, alleging a nuclear-weapons program, while at the same time offering uranium to Saudi Arabia. And with the war in Iraq well into its sixth year, one of its architects, Douglas J. Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy under Donald Rumsfeld, has predictably penned a revisionist history of the war and the decisions behind it. Feith said this week: "So while it was a terrible mistake for the administration to rely on the erroneous intelligence about WMD -- and, I mean, it was catastrophic to our credibility -- first of all, it was an honest error and not a lie. But even if you correct it for that error, what we found in Iraq was a serious WMD threat. Even though Saddam Hussein had chosen to not maintain the stockpiles, he had put himself in a position where he could have regenerated those stockpiles in three to five weeks." I asked Hans Blix about Feith's comments. He was the United Nations' chief weapons inspector, in charge of the WMD search. I interviewed him from Stockholm, Sweden. Reflecting back five years, he said: "To prove that there is nothing is almost impossible. I think that if we had been in Iraq for a couple of months more, it would have been enough to make it extremely clear to everybody that the chances were real that there were no weapons of mass destruction." Instead of waiting for the inspections, the Pentagon was busy trying to discredit Blix. I asked him about the allegations that the U.S. was bugging his office and home. He said, "I wish to heaven that they had listened a little better to what I had to say, if they did listen."
  I asked Blix what is the single most important thing the U.S. could do to support world peace. Sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, he said: "Then I think it's very likely that the Chinese, who have not ratified, will follow. If China does it, maybe India does. If India does, Pakistan does, etc. And the treaty would enter into force. It would be a great thing if we outlawed any nuclear-weapons tests in the future." [Evidence] [WMD] [NPT]
• Pentagon audit faults massive payments to contractors in Iraq
  By James Glanz Friday, May 23, 2008 http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/23/america/pentagon.php A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the U.S. Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received. The audit also found a sometimes stunning lack of accountability in the way the U.S. military spent about $1.8 billion in seized or frozen Iraqi assets, which in the early phases of the conflict were often doled out in stacks or pallets of cash. The audit was released Thursday in tandem with a congressional hearing on the payments. [Corruption]
• The Rise of the 'Locavore'
  How the strengthening local food movement in towns across the U.S. is reshaping farms and food retailing by Pallavi Gogoi Drive through the rolling foothills of the Appalachian range in southwestern Virginia and you'll come across Abingdon, one of the oldest towns west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. If it happens to be a Saturday morning, you might think there's a party going on—every week between 7 a.m. and noon, more than 1,000 people gather in the parking lot on Main Street, next to the police station. This is Abingdon's farmers' market. "For folks here, this is part of the Saturday morning ritual," says Anthony Flaccavento, a farmer who is also executive director of Appalachian Sustainable Development, a nonprofit organization working in the Appalachian region of Virginia and Tennessee. It's a relatively recent ritual [Green] [IM] [Foodmiles]
• Nau Is Then
  The hip green clothing label with an unconventional approach to style, materials, and retailing calls it quits. What went wrong?
  by Ernest Beck When the founders of Portland (Ore.)-based Nau first came together in 2005 to lay the groundwork for a sustainable fashion company, their strict eco-principles and innovative e-tailing strategy appeared to be ideas whose time had come. [Green]
• Melbourne University demotes dissident
  Melbourne University has demoted one of its most outspoken academics after a complaint against him by the state government. Paul Mees, a senior lecturer in transport planning and a prominent public-transport advocate, was told his pay would be slashed and his position downgraded after he made a strongly worded attack on the government over transport privatisation. Without telling Dr Mees, the university also launched an investigation into whether he had damaged the university’s reputation. The inquiry found that Dr Mees had “brought the university into disrepute by making derogatory and insulting comments” about government officers. The investigation found that it did not matter whether Dr Mees’s statements were true or not. “His defence of truth should be dismissed,” said the investigation report. “Academics are entitled to be forthright in their views. But it is not their role to make allegations of personal misconduct or criminal misconduct in a public forum.” [human rights]
• Growth challenge
  Published: May 22 2008 19:25 | Last updated: May 22 2008 19:25 The "Washington Consensus" – stabilise, privatise and liberalise – is dead. Long live the new pragmatism. That is the message of "the growth report" released this week by the commission on growth and development chaired by the Nobel laureate, Michael Spence. No single recipe will secure sustained and rapid economic growth in poor countries, it argues. Governments have to choose from a variety of ingredients. Yet only governments can do so. They "are sometimes clumsy and sometimes errant", but "active, pragmatic governments" are indispensable.  
• Obama's Metastatic Gaffe
  By Charles Krauthammer Friday, May 23, 2008; Page A17 When the House of Representatives takes up arms against $4 gas by voting 324-84 to sue OPEC, you know that election-year discourse has entered the realm of the surreal. Another unmistakable sign is when a presidential candidate makes a gaffe, then, realizing it is too egregious to take back without suffering humiliation, decides to make it a centerpiece of his foreign policy. Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chávez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure -- then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration's refusal to do so not just "ridiculous" but "a disgrace." After that, there was no going back. So he doubled down. What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity. Should the president ever meet with enemies? Sometimes, but only after minimal American objectives -- i.e., preconditions -- have been met. The Shanghai communique was largely written long before Richard Nixon ever touched down in China. Yet Obama thinks Nixon to China confirms the wisdom of his willingness to undertake a worldwide freshman-year tyrants tour. Most of the time you don't negotiate with enemy leaders because there is nothing to negotiate. Does Obama imagine that North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela are insufficiently informed about American requirements for improved relations? [Bilateral] [Neocon]
• U.S. Wary of Pending Treaty Banning Cluster Munitions
  A U.S. B-1B Lancer unleashes cluster munitions The U.S. State Department said Wednesday a pending international treaty banning cluster munitions could have unintended consequences for international military cooperation in such areas as disaster relief. The United States and several other major military powers are not taking part in the 100-nation treaty talks in Dublin. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department. State Department officials say they share international concern about civilian casualties caused by cluster bomb munitions lingering in former battle zones. But they say the United States and key allies believe such weapons are still useful in certain conflict situations, and that rather than banning them they should be technically upgraded so that they become harmless soon after being used. [wmd] [Double standards] [Spin]
• Advice Given, but Not Always Followed, by White House
  By HELENE COOPER Published: May 22, 2008 WASHINGTON — Israel, America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East, just became the latest example of a country that has decided it is better to deal with its foes than to ignore them. [Bilateral]
• Who is the Enemy?
  Outdoing the Soviets in Afghanistan
  By Eric Walberg May 21, 2008 Twenty years ago this week the Soviet Union began its withdrawal from Afghanistan, eight and a half years after it was invited by the desperate People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had degenerated into intra-party squabbling and was beset by Islamic rebels massively financed by the United States. The straw that broke the Soviets’ back was when the US began providing Stinger missiles to Osama bin Laden and his friends. Now, after eight years of US/NATO occupation, the parallels — and differences — between the two occupation are many and stark, as confirmed by the current Russian ambassador to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov.
• In Pakistan, a dark trade comes to light
  By William Sparrow BANGKOK - Prostitution in the Islamic nation of Pakistan, once relegated to dark alleys and small red-light districts, is now seeping into many neighborhoods of country's urban centers. Reports indicate that since the period of civilian rule ended in 1977, times have changed and now the sex industry is bustling.
  The Chinese ability to "franchise" the commercial sex industry by providing down-trodden Chinese women throughout Asia, North America and Europe would be admirable in a business sense if it were not for the atrocities - human trafficking, sexual slavery and exploitation - which cloud its practice. Chinese bordellos, often operating as "massage parlors" or beauty salons, are across Pakistan, even spread even to war-torn and restive locations such as the Afghan capital Kabul. Chinese in the sex industry have developed a cunning ability to recognize areas where the demand for sex far outstrips the supply.
• Russia-China: Axis of Convenience
  Bobo Lo, 20 - 05 - 2008 The China threat looms large in the Russian imagination, but is not justified by the facts suggests Bobo Lo, writing for openDemocracy's new collaboration on Russia and the world oD: Russia's relations with China were surprisingly good under President Putin... Bobo Lo: It is probably the major success of Russian foreign policy in the post-Soviet period, both under Yeltsin and Putin. Putin, in particular, has committed himself to improving Russia-China relations. And he has done very well. oD: So will the Chinese worry now that he's going? Bobo Lo: They will a bit.
• Daniel Berrigan: Forty Years After Catonsville
  By Chris Hedges
  May 20, 2008 Forty years ago this month, Father Daniel Berrigan walked into a draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, with eight other activists, including his brother, Father Philip Berrigan, and removed draft files of young men who were about to be sent to Vietnam. The group carted the files outside and burned them in two garbage cans with homemade napalm. Father Berrigan was tried, found guilty, spent four months as a fugitive from the FBI, was apprehended and sent to prison for eighteen months.
  The distractions of the world are for him just that--distractions. The current election campaign does not preoccupy him, and he quotes his brother, Philip, who said that "if voting made any difference it would be illegal." He is critical off the Catholic Church, saying that Pope John Paul II, who marginalized and silenced radical priests and nuns like the Berrigans, "introduced Soviet methods into the Catholic Church," including "anonymous delations, removals, scrutiny and secrecy and the placing of company men into positions of great power." He estimates that "it is going to take at least a generation to undo appointments of John Paul II." He despairs of universities, especially Boston College's decision last year to give an honorary degree to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and this year to invite the new Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, to address the law school. "It is a portrayal of shabby lives as exemplary and to be honored," he says. And he has little time for secular radicals who stood with him forty years ago but who have now "disappeared into the matrix of money and regular jobs or gave up on their initial discipline." "The short fuse of the American left is typical of the highs and lows of American emotional life," he says. "It is very rare to sustain a movement in recognizable form without a spiritual base." All empires, Berrigan cautions, rise and fall. It is the religious and moral values of compassion, simplicity and justice that endure and alone demand fealty. The current decline of American power is part of the cycle of human existence, although he says ruefully, "the tragedy across the globe is that we are pulling down so many others. We are not falling gracefully. Many, many people are paying with their lives for this." "The fall of the towers [on 9/11] was symbolic as well as actual," he adds. "We are bringing ourselves down by a willful blindness that is astonishing." Berrigan argues that those who seek a just society, who seek to defy war and violence, who decry the assault of globalization and degradation of the environment, who care about the plight of the poor, should stop worrying about the practical, short-term effects of their resistance. [Imperialism]
• Demolished by the Pakistan army: the frontier village punished for harbouring the Taliban·
  200,000 flee after attack on militant stronghold · Soldiers say schools for suicide bombers found Declan Walsh in Spinkai, South Waziristan The Guardian, Tuesday May 20 2008 A fading photo tossed on an empty bed is all that remains of the interrupted lives in Spinkai, a desolate Pakistani village that has endured the wrath of the army's "collective punishment". In the image a laughing young man in a jet-black turban brandishes his rifle like a trophy. Beside him stand two little girls in bright frocks, giggling with glee. Now they have fled, and so has everyone else. An estimated 200,000 villagers have been displaced since the Pakistani army attacked the mountain redoubt of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and a suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto four months ago. The operation was called zalzala - Urdu for earthquake.   [human rights]
• The Hitler Analogy
  By Anne Applebaum Tuesday, May 20, 2008; Page A13 "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals. . . . We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' " -- George W. Bush, May 2008   "Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing. . . . [and] in these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world." -- Vladimir Putin, May 2007   No, I am not drawing comparisons between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, two vastly different men, by citing these statements. Nevertheless, it is clear from the above that Bush and Putin, despite their vast differences, share a common contemporary ailment: Each suffers from the inexplicable need to inject the Nazis into current political debate, whether they belong there or not. True, it seems that Nazi analogies can be used with almost infinite flexibility
  Clearly, the circumstances changed, for example, in the case of North Korea, a regime that featured as a part of the "axis of evil" in 2002 and with whose leadership a number of Bush administration officials now negotiate full time. As it happens, I've got no problem calling North Korea "evil," and I dislike the current negotiations, not least because they perpetuate the illusion that the United States, not China, is the most influential foreign player on the Korean Peninsula. Still, that doesn't mean that the Americans participating in talks with North Korea are the precise contemporary equivalents of Neville Chamberlain, and it doesn't mean that the North Koreans are about to invade Poland. By the same token, we don't learn anything useful by calling Kim Jong Il "Hitler," we haven't achieved much by calling Bush or Blair a Nazi, and the idea that people who want to negotiate with Iran are the moral equivalent of Vichy collaborators is ridiculous. Seventy years have passed: Let's put the ghosts of Munich to rest, this time for good.
• America’s and Japan’s Olympic Debuts: Lessons for Beijing 2008 (and the Tibet Controversy)
  Susan Brownell
  Neoclassical architecture in the Government Building at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. From David R. Francis, The Universal Exposition of 1904 (St. Louis: Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, 1905), p. 91. The third modern Olympic Games were held in St. Louis in 1904 alongside the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (world’s fair), and while China did not take part in the sports (it would send its first Olympic athlete to the 1932 Los Angeles Games), the Qing dynasty sent the first official delegation that it had ever sent to an international exposition. It was motivated to do so by concerns about the negative national image of China promoted by the unofficial exhibits at previous fairs, such as the opium den exhibit at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The 1904 Olympics were apparently the first Olympics to be reported in the press back in China. Opium Den Concession at 1893 Chicago World’s Fair The world’s fair was America’s coming-out party as a world power. It had just acquired the former Spanish colonies of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam as a result of the Spanish-American war of 1898 and the subsequent Philippines-American war. At the fair, it presented itself as an expanding power, with an extremely large display devoted to the Philippines. Another large section of the exposition grounds was devoted to displays intended to demonstrate that the government was succeeding in civilizing American Indians. [Olympics] [Imperialism]
• Britain to press ahead with Islamic bond
  By David Oakley, Capital Markets Correspondent Published: May 19 2008 07:08 | Last updated: May 19 2008 07:08 Britain will announce its determination to launch the first Islamic bonds by a western government, in the clearest sign yet that long-running doubts over costs and pricing have finally been put to rest. Kitty Ussher, the UK’s economic secretary to the Treasury, will say there is a "powerful momentum" behind the plans, which will cement London’s position as the leading western centre for Islamic finance.[Halal]
• A 'League' By Other Names
  By Jackson Diehl Monday, May 19, 2008; Page A17 In the vision for 2013 that he outlined last week, John McCain included something he calls the "League of Democracies," an organization he has promised to create during his first year as president that could respond to global humanitarian crises -- and, perhaps, substitute for the U.N. Security Council when it is paralyzed by authoritarian powers such as Russia and China. Pundits and bloggers have seized on the proposal as proof that McCain, like George W. Bush before him, is in thrall to the "radical neocons" who allegedly authored the war in Iraq. They couldn't be more wrong. In fact, a league of democracies is not a new but a very old idea. [Imperialism] [UNUS]
• The World Can't Wait for 'Indy'? It Won't Have To
  By William Booth Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 19, 2008; Page A01 CANNES, France, May 18 -- It has been almost two decades since the irrepressible archaeologist with the bullwhip and fedora last graced the big screen, but as Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford walked the red carpet here on Sunday for the world premiere of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," they were launching more than a summer sequel.
  Hollywood blockbusters have become global mega-events -- as the films are released on the same day in cities around the world, in a mass moment of pop culture consumption that rivals traditional shared experiences such as the Olympics.
  Just a few years ago, even the hottest Hollywood properties opened first in the United States and later were rolled out overseas, where audiences had to wait for weeks or months to see them. But the latest "Indy" movie reflects the new realities of movie marketing and distribution. Foreign box office receipts for American movies often far outstrip domestic ticket sales, making it more important than ever to satisfy the Internet-savvy, plugged-in, impatient teenage consumer in Korea or Bulgaria or Egypt. [IM] [Globalisation]
• One Country’s Table Scraps, Another Country’s Meal
  By ANDREW MARTIN Published: May 18, 2008 Grocery bills are rising through the roof. Food banks are running short of donations. And food shortages are causing sporadic riots in poor countries through the world.
  Food, a Shrinking Burden You’d never know it if you saw what was ending up in your landfill. As it turns out, Americans waste an astounding amount of food — an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study — and it happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American.
• As Deaths Outpace Births, Cities Adjust
  By SAM ROBERTS and SEAN D. HAMILL Published: May 18, 2008 PITTSBURGH — This city has passed a grim demographic milestone: More people are dying here than are being born.
  What demographers call a natural decrease has been occurring for years in tiny rural towns and in some retirement meccas in the South. But the phenomenon is relatively new in metropolitan areas in the Northeast, the Rust Belt of the Middle West and Appalachia. Hospitals are closing obstetrics wards and converting them to acute care. Local governments and other social service providers are adjusting to the emergence of entire neighborhoods where the average age is soaring, and private foundations are awarding scholarships to retain students and attract new ones. [Ageing society]
• Militants Free Ambassador of Pakistan in Exchange
  By JANE PERLEZ Published: May 18, 2008 PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, who was kidnapped three months ago by Taliban militants as he traveled in Pakistan’s tribal area, was released Friday night, the government said.
  The release of the envoy, Tariq Azizuddin, was announced Saturday, and he arrived in Islamabad in the afternoon. His release was the most prominent one sought by the government as part of a broad peace deal it is expected to complete with the Pakistani Taliban within days. The deal has already involved an exchange of prisoners between Tehrik-e-Taliban, the umbrella group for Pakistani militants, and the army.
• Russia, India, China step up solidarity
  Vladimir Radyuhin
  They have coordinated positions on Kosovo, Iran, Afghanistan
  YEKATERINBURG (Russia): Russia, India and China displayed enhanced solidarity on a range of key international issues at their meeting here on Thursday in a sign that their trilateral dialogue may be acquiring a strategic dimension. In a joint communiqué, adopted at their eighth meeting, the Foreign Ministers of the countries “reaffirmed the commonality” in their views on the global situation and, for the first time, set out coordinated positions on Kosovo, Iran, Afghanistan and the Asia-Pacific region, as India displayed a greater readiness to go along with its partners in the triangle on these issues. [RIC]
• How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
  Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington The Guardian, Saturday September 25 2004 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday September 25 2004 . It was last updated at 23:59 on September 24 2004. George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism. His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
• U.S. Planning Big New Prison in Afghanistan
  By ERIC SCHMITT and TIM GOLDEN Published: May 17, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come. [Imperialism]
• The President Goes Negative
  Editorial Published: May 17, 2008 President Bush’s penchant for slash-and-burn politics, learned at the feet of Karl Rove and the late Lee Atwater, is unseemly when practiced at home. It is shameful for the president and damaging for the country when put on display abroad. So it was especially distressing to hear Mr. Bush’s barely veiled attack against Senator Barack Obama in front of Israel’s Parliament. In a speech honoring Israel’s 60th anniversary, Mr. Bush likened those who call for talks with "terrorists and radicals" to those who appeased the Nazis. "We have an obligation to call this what it is," he declared, "the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." There are few words more fraught than "appeasement" and no place where they carry more emotional weight than in Israel.
  Diplomacy is simply good sense. There is no guarantee that it will change anyone’s mind. But Mr. Bush’s refusal to talk has made it far easier for North Korea to churn out plutonium, Iran to meddle in Iraq and indulge its nuclear appetites and Syria and Iran to back Hamas and Hezbollah. The list goes on. [Bilateral]
• Bounties a Bust in Hunt for Al-Qaeda
  Lavish U.S. Rewards Program Has Failed to Dent Network's Leadership
  By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, May 17, 2008; Page A01 SANAA, Yemen -- Jaber Elbaneh is one of the world's most-wanted terrorism suspects. In 2003, the U.S. government indicted him, posted a $5 million reward for his capture and distributed posters bearing photos of him around the globe.
• Myanmar and China Disaster Reporting Contrasted
  From Bad...to Bad?
  The Myanmar meme in the Western press has evolved from “Myanmar isn’t letting in aid” to “Myanmar isn’t letting in aid workers”. Now another iteration is in order. According to AP: In a clear sign that politics is playing a role, the junta granted approval to 160 relief workers from India, China, Bangladesh and Thailand, which have rarely criticized Myanmar's democracy record. So, it’s time for an upgrade to “Myanmar isn’t letting in Western aid workers”. Wait a minute. The U.N. has applied for visas for about 100 U.N. international staff in Myanmar, and close to 40 have been granted, Holmes said. International staff of non-governmental groups have obtained at least 46 visas, he said, while Myanmar's immediate neighbors -- Thailand, Bangladesh, India and China -- have been allowed to send in 160 humanitarian workers. They are letting in Western aid workers! [Media]
• GM: Live Green or Die
  The lumbering, money-losing giant finally sees that gas engines are a losing bet. But is it too late? by David Welch May 26, 2008 In April of 2005, General Motors (GM) Chairman and Chief Executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. convened his management team for a monthly strategy session. Held in the boardroom at GM's Detroit headquarters, these meetings can last a day as 20 or so executives mull plans for new cars and product strategies. Meetings often kick off with a roundtable format, and attendees are encouraged to pose new ideas and stray from the agenda. That's when Vice-Chairman Robert A. Lutz spoke up. Lutz, whose gravelly pronouncements routinely enliven auto shows and generate headlines, has a certain genius for challenging conventional wisdom. Maybe, he told GM's brain trust, it was time to build another electric car—one that would use a giant version of the lithium ion batteries that power cell phones and laptops
  By the time Lutz revisited the issue in 2005, Toyota Motor's (TM) quirky Prius hybrid had turned the Japanese automaker into a poster boy for the environmental movement and cast a greenish halo over the entire company. [Green] [IM]
• Pentagon Calls on Burma's Junta to Accept Aid
  Geoff Morrell, 09 May 2008 The Pentagon is calling on Burma's leaders to "put their pride aside" and allow more international help for victims of the cyclone that hit the country 12 days ago. VOA's Al Pessin reports from the Pentagon
• Obama Admires Bush
  E-MailPrint Save Share By DAVID BROOKS Published: May 16, 2008 Hezbollah is one of the world’s most radical terrorist organizations. Over the last week or so, it has staged an armed assault on the democratic government of Lebanon. Barack Obama issued a statement in response. He called on "all those who have influence with Hezbollah" to "press them to stand down." Then he declared, "It’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment." That sentence has the whiff of what President Bush described yesterday as appeasement. Is Obama naïve enough to think that an extremist ideological organization like Hezbollah can be mollified with a less corrupt patronage system and some electoral reform? Does he really believe that Hezbollah is a normal social welfare agency seeking more government services for its followers? Does Obama believe that even the most intractable enemies can be pacified with diplomacy? What "Lebanese consensus" can Hezbollah possibly be a part of? If Obama believes all this, he’s not just a Jimmy Carter-style liberal. He’s off in Noam Chomskyland. That didn’t strike me as right, so I spoke with Obama Tuesday to ask him what he meant by all this. Right off the bat he reaffirmed that Hezbollah is "not a legitimate political party." Instead, "It’s a destabilizing organization by any common-sense standard. This wouldn’t happen without the support of Iran and Syria."
  Obama doesn’t broadcast moral disgust when talking about terror groups, but he said that in some ways he’d be tougher than the Bush administration. He said he would do more to arm the Lebanese military and would be tougher on North Korea. "This is not an argument between Democrats and Republicans," he concluded. "It’s an argument between ideology and foreign policy realism. I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don’t have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm. I don’t have a lot of complaints with their handling of the fall of the Berlin Wall."   [Imperialism]
• Tibet, Palestine and the politics of failure
  Fred Halliday
  Why do some countries achieve independence and not others? The key factor is "post-colonial sequestration syndrome", argues Fred Halliday, who connects the experience of aspirants to statehood with the moment of international power-politics which entraps or releases them. (This article was first published on 9 May 2008) 13 - 05 - 2008
• Oil Wars
  By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH
  Despite all the recent talk of soaring prices at the pump, political and economic pundits rarely mention the impact of war and political instability in the Middle East on the skyrocketing price of oil. There is strong evidence, however, that the heightened price of energy is a direct consequence of the destabilizing wars and geopolitical insecurity in the region.
  There is no hard evidence, however, that oil companies pushed for or supported the Bush administration’s plans of invading Iraq—just as they are now leery of the administration’s threat of a military strike against Iran. [Military industrial complex][Imperialism]
• In a surprise, Uribe sends 14 militia leaders to U.S. for trial
  Jay Weaver and Tyler Bridges | Miami Herald last updated: May 13, 2008 09:43:35 PM CARACAS — Colombian President Alvaro Uribe authorized the extradition to the United States of 14 notorious paramilitary warlords Tuesday to face cocaine-trafficking charges in a move that surprised many. In a nationwide television address, Uribe said that he agreed to the extradition because the paramilitary leaders had been committing crimes behind bars and had failed to make restitution to victims of their crimes. ''The country has been generous with them, but the government can't tolerate a relapse into crime,'' Uribe said.   [Extraterritoriality]
• Indians Find U.S. at Fault in Food Cost
  By HEATHER TIMMONS Published: May 14, 2008 NEW DELHI — Instead of blaming India and other developing nations for the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy — and go on a diet. Comparison Consuming That has been the response, basically, of a growing number of politicians, economists and academics in this country, who are angry at statements by top United States officials that India’s rising prosperity is to blame for food inflation
• Italian’s Detention Illustrates Dangers Foreign Visitors Face
  By NINA BERNSTEIN Published: May 14, 2008 He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman university. She was "a totally Virginia girl," as she puts it, raised across the road from George Washington’s home. Their romance, sparked by a 2006 meeting in a supermarket in Rome, soon brought the Italian, Domenico Salerno, on frequent visits to Alexandria, Va., where he was welcomed like a favorite son by the parents and neighbors of his girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper.
  "We have a lot of government people here and lobbyists and lawyers and very educated, very savvy Washingtonians," said Jim Cooper, Ms. Cooper’s father, a businessman, describing the reaction in his neighborhood, the Wessynton subdivision of Alexandria. "They were pretty shocked that the government could do this sort of thing, because it doesn’t happen that often, except to people you never hear about, like Haitians and Guatemalans."   [Human rights]
• Inside Burma: a Chosun Ilbo Report From the Disaster Zone
  After being stuck in the old Burmese capital of Rangoon for two days, I finally received a call from a car rental service that I would be able to make the trip to Irrawaddy, the region hit hardest by cyclone Nargys that slammed into Burma on May 2. The military junta was blocking all foreigners from getting into that area, and car rental firms had been reluctant to let their vehicles go. But now, at around 11 a.m. on Sunday, I got into a 30-year-old Toyota TownAce van and embarked on the three-hour drive south to Kungyangonm, the gateway to Irrawady region. I was stopped at one checkpoint on the way to Kungyangon, but our driver Htun (36) got me out of a scrape by telling the guards that I was a Shan tribesman looking for a friend. Next to Irrawady, Kungyangon was the hardest hit by the cyclone, but there was no way accurately to assess the level of damage in the field. All I encountered was rumors: that a family of five had perished after the river burst its banks, or that more than 200 people had died. With the help of Htun, who quizzed soldiers then busy repairing roads, I found out that it would take at least two or three months before things could return to normal.
  The Burmese government has mobilized soldiers and public servants to conduct relief operations but is refusing to let international aid workers into the country
• Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear
  Scientist's reply to sell for up to £8,000, and stoke debate over his beliefs James Randerson, science correspondent The Guardian, Tuesday May 13 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday May 13 2008 . It was last updated at 02:38 on May 13 2008. Albert Einstein, pictured in 1953. Photograph: Ruth Orkin/Hulton Archive/Getty Images "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." So said Albert Einstein, and his famous aphorism has been the source of endless debate between believers and non-believers wanting to claim the greatest scientist of the 20th century as their own. A little known letter written by him, however, may help to settle the argument - or at least provoke further controversy about his views. Due to be auctioned this week in London after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, the document leaves no doubt that the theoretical physicist was no supporter of religious beliefs, which he regarded as "childish superstitions".  
  In the letter, he states: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." Einstein, who was Jewish and who declined an offer to be the state of Israel's second president, also rejected the idea that the Jews are God's favoured people. "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."
• In Custody, In Pain
  Beset by Medical Problems as She Fights Deportation, A U.S. Resident Struggles to Get the Treatment She Needs
  by Amy Goldstein and Dana Priest | Washington Post Staff Writers Page A1; May 12, 2008
  FLORENCE, Ariz. -- Underneath her baggy jail-issue pants, Yong Sun Harvill feels the soft lump just below her left knee. Sometimes it tingles. Sometimes it is numb. Like her cancer felt when it arrived behind the knee a few years ago. She noticed the lump under the thin, blue cotton in August, five months after federal immigration officers, to her amazement, took her into custody to try to deport her for buying stolen jewelry more than a decade ago. The lump grows slowly. It is now three inches across. And though she keeps asking, no one has done a test to see whether her sarcoma has come back.  
  And it remains uncertain whether her frequent crying spells are part of bipolar disorder, as some records suggest, or a flare-up of old anxieties -- heightened now by chronic pain, bewildering medical problems, and the fact that, three decades after she arrived from South Korea as a teenage Army bride, she is in a jail far from home with the government trying to eject her from the United States.   [Human rights]
• Shell and Repsol drop Iran gas project
  By Anna Fifield in Tehran and Javier Blas in London Published: May 11 2008 19:00 | Last updated: May 11 2008 19:00 Royal Dutch Shell and Spain’s Repsol have pulled out of one of Iran’s biggest gas projects, dealing a blow to Tehran’s attempts to expand its energy exports in the face of US and international sanctions. The pair will withdraw from the $10bn-plus development of phase 13 of South Pars, the world’s largest gas field. They say they could still participate in other phases.   Their decision is made as Washington intensifies pressure on international companies to stop operating in Iran, part of a campaign to isolate Tehran over its refusal to halt its nuclear programme. Neither Shell nor Repsol would comment on the US pressure
  Russia’s Gazprom, Sinopec of China, and the Indian national oil company were all keen to take their place, he warned.   [Sanctions]
• U.S. Legal Work Booms in India
  New Outsourcing Industry Is Growing 60 Percent Annually By Rama Lakshmi Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, May 11, 2008; Page A20 GURGAON, India -- When Aashish Sharma graduated from law school two years ago, his father had visions of seeing him argue in an Indian court and eventually become an honorable judge. Instead, Sharma, 25, now sits all day in front of a computer in a plush, air-conditioned suburban office doing litigation research and drafting legal contracts for U.S. companies and law firms. He is part of a booming new outsourcing industry in India that employs thousands of English-speaking lawyers such as him to do legal work at a small fraction of the cost of hiring American lawyers. "It is much better than going to court in India and dealing with all kinds of rough people. Working in legal outsourcing is a happy career move for me, although my father does not fully understand what I am doing here after my education in Indian law," said Sharma, who began working in February for an outsourcing company called Quatrro. "I am getting valuable exposure to the American judicial system, corporate law and their way of working." Legal process outsourcing is being called the next big thing in Indian business. It marks India's climb up the chain of outsourcing jobs -- from low-end, back-office service functions in call centers to high-value, skilled legal work.   [Offshoring] [Services]  
• Fools Rush In... To Seek Geopolitical Advantage from Myanmar’s Crisis
  China Hand
  Friday, May 09, 2008 For the impassioned interventionist, Myanmar has it all: a corrupt and despotic junta, a gallant pro-democracy princess, and brave, battling monks. Now it’s got a colossal humanitarian crisis that throws the failures and flaws of the detested regime into sharp relief. One thing it doesn’t have: a government so callous and shortsighted it will refuse international aid in order to preserve its own rule. However, this is a line that the United States and its allies are pushing, apparently in an effort to delegitimize and weaken the Myanmar regime and maybe tally up a regime change success on the cheap, courtesy of an unprecedented natural disaster. As a result, we may sacrifice an important source of credibility and leverage in Asia—America’s perceived willingness to provide apolitical disaster relief—and open the door for China to supplant us in this key role. [China competition]
• Networked from birth
  Boris Johnson's election as mayor now means that there are two men with remarkably similar histories at the top of the Tory party: both he and leader David Cameron are Old Etonians who went to Oxford and were members of the same notorious drinking club. But the Conservatives are just reflecting modern Britain, says John Harris - a nation that is now less meritocratic than in a generation
• Pentagon Drops Post in Pakistan for Top General
  Published: May 9, 2008 WASHINGTON — When the Pentagon announced in March that Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood would become the senior American officer based in Pakistan, it reflected the military’s aim to put a crisis-tested veteran in a critical job at a pivotal time in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas. But nearly two months later, the military has quietly canceled the assignment of General Hood, a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.   [Softpower]
• U.S. consumers rank last in world survey of green habits
  By Queenie Wong | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 WASHINGTON — Americans rank last in a new National Geographic-sponsored survey released Wednesday that compares environmental consumption habits in 14 countries. Americans were least likely to choose the greener option in three out of four categories — housing, transportation and consumer goods_ according to the assessment. In the fourth category, food, Americans ranked ahead of Japanese consumers, who eat more meat and seafood. [Bizarre] [IM]
• WITNESS: Blacklisted By My Bank For Living In Iran
  By REUTERS Published: May 8, 2008 TEHRAN (Reuters) - "Your account has been blocked because of your address ... It's not personal." The bank employee in Brussels sounded almost apologetic when she told me my business was no longer wanted since I live in Iran, which is under tightening U.N. and U.S. sanctions over its disputed nuclear plans. I argued with her over a scratchy phone line: "But I'm a European Union citizen." It was in vain. The account I had opened with Banque Bruxelles Lambert (BBL) when I worked in the Belgian capital in the mid-1990s was frozen, and I must move my money elsewhere. Iran was among countries on a "black list" the bank had, she told me: "It is impossible to work with your address." [financial sanctions]
• DIC turns to emerging markets
  By Roula Khalaf in Riyadh Published: May 7 2008 00:03 | Last updated: May 7 2008 00:03 Global market turmoil and a western backlash over sovereign wealth funds have pushed Dubai International Capital – the $13bn fund controlled by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the country’s ruler – into focusing on emerging markets. Sameer al-Ansari, the head of the fund that has been involved in a high-profile struggle to buy Liverpool Football Club, said the closer focus on emerging markets "has been forced" on his group. He said there were now more interesting opportunities in emerging markets, particularly in Asia, than in Europe or the US. In addition, the tight conditions in credit markets had made it difficult for DIC’s private equity arm to raise debt for company buy-outs.  
  Although DIC has been in the news mainly because of its attempt to buy Liverpool , Mr Ansari’s attention has been on a new fund to invest in Chinese companies. DIC is putting $500m into the $1bn fund, set up with Hong Kong-based First Eastern Investment Group, and designed to invest in small and medium-sized companies with the hope of bringing some of them public on the Dubai International Financial Exchange. While expressing his disappointment with the performance of the DIFX to date – it still has few companies trading and one expected initial public offering was pulled last week – Mr Ansari insisted that the exchange was headed for "revolutionary change" once its tie-up with Nasdaq is implemented. Speaking on the sidelines of an FT China-Middle East summit in Riyadh Mr Ansari said DIC was also launching a $1bn Saudi fund with two local Saudi investors. The investment group is also considering starting a fund to invest in India. [China competition]
• Washington's Battle Over Israel's Birth
  By Richard Holbrooke Wednesday, May 7, 2008; Page A21 In the celebrations next week surrounding Israel's 60th anniversary, it should not be forgotten that there was an epic struggle in Washington over how to respond to Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. It led to the most serious disagreement President Harry Truman ever had with his revered secretary of state, George C. Marshall -- and with most of the foreign policy establishment. Twenty years ago, when I was helping Clark Clifford write his memoirs, I reviewed the historical record and interviewed all the living participants in that drama. The battle lines drawn then resonate still. The British planned to leave Palestine at midnight on May 14. At that moment, the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, would proclaim the new (and still unnamed) Jewish state. The neighboring Arab states warned that fighting, which had already begun, would erupt into full-scale war at that moment.
• The politics of cluster bombs
  By Brian McCartan May 6, 2008 XIENG KHUANG, Laos - Nang Wan lies in a hospital bed in this remote area's provincial hospital, her body covered in small black wounds. The 35-year-old woman was digging a shallow drainage ditch around her house on April 16 when her world exploded. Her youngest, five-year-old, son was killed instantly in the blast. Her other two young children are in the room across the hall, with shrapnel wounds to their bodies and faces. Their injuries are tragically common in this northern province of Laos, a legacy of the country's war with the United States. During the US's so-called "Secret War" in Laos, which spanned from 1964-1973, the US military dropped more than 2.4 million tons of bombs on the country, including around 270 million cluster bomb sub-munitions. According to the government-run unexploded ordnance (UXO) disposal organization UXO-Lao, 4,837 people have been killed or injured by cluster munitions, many of them decades after the war's end.
• Japan, China, S Korea to launch consultative body for financial stability
  Monday 05th May, 12:57 AM JST MADRID — Finance ministers from Japan, China and South Korea agreed Sunday in their meeting in Madrid to create a new framework by the end of the year to promote financial stability in Asia, recognizing the current financial market turbulence as a major risk to the regional economy. “The current international financial market turbulence is one of the main risks to the economies,” the finance chiefs said in a joint message issued after the trilateral talks. “We are mindful of the necessity to enhance communication among authorities responsible for macroeconomic and financial stability.”
• In ghost town where Afghan war begins, UK fights losing battle
  Declan Walsh in Garmser The Guardian, Monday May 5 2008 There is only silence in Garmser, a ghost town on the edge of the desert in southern Afghanistan. The bazaar is a lonely line of abandoned shops and debris-strewn streets. There is just one trader - a baker - whose sole customers are British soldiers and Afghan police. Further out, giant bomb craters dot the broken gardens and shredded fruit orchards of empty houses. Now they are inhabited by the British. Squatting on a rickety rooftop, Corporal Lachlan MacNeil pointed to a cluster of long, low buildings. "That's the madrasa [Islamic school]. It's a training camp for the Taliban," he said, his face glistening from the morning heat. "Mostly foreigners inside, we hear - central Asians and Arabs, but especially Pakistanis."  
  But most, Afghan and British officials say, are Pakistani - ideologically driven young men who consider the war as a religious obligation of struggle, or jihad.
• The New Geopolitics of Energy
  By Michael T. Klare
  This article appeared in the May 19, 2008 edition of The Nation. While the day-to-day focus of US military planning remains Iraq and Afghanistan, American strategists are increasingly looking beyond these two conflicts to envision the global combat environment of the emerging period--and the world they see is one where the struggle over vital resources, rather than ideology or balance-of-power politics, dominates the martial landscape. Believing that the United States must reconfigure its doctrines and forces in order to prevail in such an environment, senior officials have taken steps to enhance strategic planning and combat capabilities. Although little of this has reached the public domain, there have been a number of key indicators. [energy security] [Imperialism]
• Somali Islamist Leader Killed in Airstrike
  An airstrike in central Somalia has killed the military commander of an Islamist militant group with ties to al-Qaida. A spokesman for the Islamist group al-Shabab told reporters the pre-dawn strike in the town of Dusamareb killed Aden Hashi Ayro and another senior leader. Witnesses said U.S. planes carried out the strike and that at least eight other people were killed. The U.S. military said it launched an attack against an al-Qaida target in Somalia but did not give any details. The U.S. has carried out several airstrikes against suspected terrorists in Somalia over the past year. In March, the U.S. State Department designated Somalia's al-Shabab as a terrorist organization. The group is considered the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union that briefly controlled much of southern Somalia in 2006. In recent months, al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for a series of bombings and attacks on Somali government and Ethiopian soldiers. [Terrorism] [Democracy] [Double standards]
• One language fits all
  By Henry Hitchings Published: May 3 2008 02:21 | Last updated: May 3 2008 02:21 The point is made afresh in The Fight for English: no one owns English any more. But this doesn’t stop native speakers clinging on to the illusion that the destiny of the language is theirs alone to shape.
• How Much Did Rumsfeld Know?
  Thursday, May. 01, 2008 Then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talks to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, head of Coaltion Forces in Iraq, May 13, 2004. David Hume Kennerly / Getty Article ToolsPrintEmailReprintsSphereAddThisRSSYahoo! Buzz Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq in 2003-2004, has written a new memoir, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story, an account of his life and his service in Iraq. Sanchez was a three-star general — and the military's senior Hispanic officer — when he led U.S. forces in the first year of the war. He was relieved of his command by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2004 following the revelations of the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. In 2005, Marine General Peter Pace, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called him to say his career was over and he wouldn't get the promotion to a full general — four stars — that Sanchez says he was promised. Six months later, at Rumsfeld's request, he showed up at the Pentagon for a meeting with the defense secretary shortly before retiring. In this exclusive excerpt, Sanchez details what happened next:
• On Spam's Birthday, Three Cheers for 'Delete'
  By Mike Musgrove Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, May 3, 2008; Page D01 Happy birthday, spam. P.S.: Now go away. It was 30 years ago this Saturday that users of Arpanet, a U.S. government-designed precursor to the Internet, logged onto their accounts to find what is considered the first piece of unsolicited commercial e-mail ever sent. It was a pitch for a new computer. "We invite you to come see the 2020 and hear about the DECSYSTEM-20 family at the two product presentations we will be giving in California this month," read the missive, sent by a salesman named Gary Thuerk on May 3, 1978. Thuerk's e-mail prompted an aggravated discussion among the service's users, the relatively small number of high-level academics with access to computers that then cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. "This is a clear and flagrant abuse of the directory!" one of the hundreds of users on Thuerk's recipient list complained in a public reply.
• Iran steps into enemy's territory
  By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
  This week, with his three-nation tour of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India, Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will fortify Iran's regional ties and thus achieve a milestone in his administration's "Look East" foreign policy orientation. Accompanied by a high-ranking delegation, Ahmadinejad's trip transpires at a time of heightened US allegations of Iran's meddling in Iraq and serves as an antidote to the US policy of isolating Iran and castigating it as a rogue or pariah state. Too bad for the US, which now places the lion's share of the blame for its quagmire in Iraq on Iran's "destructive influence", two key US allies in the sub-continent, India and Pakistan, are now poised to deepen their economic, political, cultural and even [Quadrille]
• Race, Gender, and Class in American Politics: Anything New?
  Immanuel Wallerstein
  Commentary No. 232, May 1, 2008 Throughout the world, May 1 is celebrated as May Day - the international workers' day. The only exception is the United States. The irony is that May Day is celebrated in memory of an American event - the Haymarket Riot in Chicago. On May 1, 1886, in many U.S. cities workers engaged in a general strike in support of an eight-hour day. In Chicago, 80,000 workers marched down Michigan Avenue. On the fourth day of the demonstrations, at the very end of a rally in Haymarket Square, violence broke out. Its origin is contested to this day, but some policemen were killed. Subsequently, leaders of the strike were arrested and four were executed for what was termed murder. Although they were German immigrants to the United States, they died singing not The Star-Spangled Banner but La Marseillaise, an expression of international class solidarity. Despite this, politicians in the United States have always tried to downplay the importance of class conflict as a defining issue of U.S. politics, which is why the United States does not celebrate May Day.
• Iran holds key to India's energy insecurity
  By Kaveh L Afrasiabi In the rapidly intensifying international energy game, Iran holds a master key to the most staggering roadblock to India's economic growth - energy insecurity. With the issue of energy cooperation expected to dominate talks on Tuesday between visiting Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his hosts in New Delhi, a new chapter in India-Iran relations is on the horizon that will likely bring the two countries closer together on a long-term basis. While not an official state visit, since it is Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's turn to visit Iran, Ahmadinejad's brief yet significant stopover after his trips to Sri Lanka and Pakistan has been widely interpreted by the global media as a landmark development that will usher in a new era of energy cooperation between energy-starving India and energy-rich Iran, which is also a suitable conduit for the third-country supply of energy to India, given Iran's expanding oil and gas connections to landlocked Central Asian nations. [Energy security] [Quadrille]
• Iran stops conducting oil transactions in U.S. dollars
  The Associated Press Published: April 30, 2008 TEHRAN, Iran: Iran, OPEC's second-largest producer, has stopped conducting oil transactions in U.S. dollars, a top Oil Ministry official said Wednesday, a concerted attempt to reduce reliance on Washington at a time of tension over Tehran's nuclear program and suspected involvement in Iraq. Iran has dramatically reduced dependence on the dollar over the past year in the face of increasing U.S. pressure on its financial system and the fall in the value of the American currency. Oil is priced in U.S. dollars on the world market, and the currency's depreciation has concerned producers because it has contributed to rising crude prices and eroded the value of their dollar reserves. "The dollar has totally been removed from Iran's oil transactions," Oil Ministry official Hojjatollah Ghanimifard told state-run television Wednesday. "We have agreed with all of our crude oil customers to do our transactions in non-dollar currencies." [Reserve] [Decline]
• For Striking Factory Workers, U.S.-First Pledge Falls Flat
  By Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 1, 2008; Page A01 DETROIT -- American Axle and Manufacturing employees viewed their boss Richard E. Dauch as a hero. He bet against the odds when he led a group of investors who bought five decrepit auto parts plants 14 years ago. An outspoken champion of American manufacturing, he backed his words by pouring $3 billion into modernizing the old factories. The strapping Dauch often walked the assembly line, stopping to arm-wrestle employees or to ask about their children. But times are changing, and Dauch is reneging on a critical part of the wager. The America-first chief executive says he can no longer afford the $73 an hour his employees cost. Without worker concessions, he said American Axle's five major U.S plants could be forced to close. [Offshoring]
• Is an Iranian general the most powerful man in Iraq?
  By Hannah Allam, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel Posted on Monday, April 28, 2008 BAGHDAD — One of the most powerful men in Iraq isn't an Iraqi government official, a militia leader, a senior cleric or a top U.S. military commander or diplomat,
  He's an Iranian general, and at times he's more influential than all of them.
  Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani commands the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, an elite paramilitary and espionage organization whose mission is to expand Iran's influence in the Middle East. As Tehran's point man on Iraq, he funnels military and financial support to various Iraqi factions, frustrating U.S. attempts to build a pro-Western democracy on the rubble of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. According to Iraqi and American officials, Suleimani has ensured the elections of pro-Iranian politicians, met frequently with senior Iraqi leaders and backed Shiite elements in the Iraqi security forces that are accused of torturing and killing minority Sunni Muslims. "Whether we like him (Suleimani) or not, whether Americans like him or not, whether Iraqis like him or not, he is the focal point of Iranian policy in Iraq," said a senior Iraqi official who asked not to be identified so he could speak freely. "The Quds Force have played it all, political, military, intelligence, economic. They are Iranian foreign policy in Iraq." McClatchy reported on March 30 that Suleimani intervened to halt the fighting between mostly Shiite Iraqi security forces and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in the southern city of Basra. Iraqi officials now confirm that in addition to that meeting, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani personally met Suleimani at a border crossing to make a direct appeal for help.
• From Chief Prosecutor To Critic at Guantanamo
  By Josh White Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 29, 2008; Page A01 GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, April 28 -- The Defense Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared Monday at the controversial U.S. detention facility here to argue on behalf of a terrorism suspect that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials. Sitting just feet from the courtroom table where he had once planned to make cases against military detainees, Air Force Col. Morris Davis instead took the witness stand to declare under oath that he felt undue pressure to hurry cases along so that the Bush administration could claim before political elections that the system was working.
• In France, Prisons Filled With Muslims
  By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, April 29, 2008; Page A01 SEQUEDIN, France -- Samia El Alaoui Talibi walks her beat in a cream-colored head scarf and an ink-black robe with sunset-orange piping, an outfit she picked up at a yard sale.
  After passing a bulletproof window, El Alaoui Talibi trudges through half a dozen heavy, locked doors to reach the Muslim faithful to whom she ministers in the women's cellblock of the Lille-Sequedin Detention Center in far northern France. It took her years to earn this access, said El Alaoui Talibi, one of only four Muslim holy women allowed to work in French prisons [Islam] [Human rights]

• The Democrats 'Free Trade' Divide
  Mark Engler | April 23, 2008
  [Note: This essay was drawn from FPIF analyst Mark Engler’s new book, How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy, published by Nation Books.] “Free trade” has produced some of the most contentious political debates of our times. In a famous April 2000 article in the New Republic, economist Joseph Stiglitz argued, “Economic policy is today perhaps the most important part of America's interaction with the rest of the world. And yet the culture of international economic policy in the world's most powerful democracy is not democratic.” During the Bush years, economic policy received far less attention in political discussion than before; the use of military force took center stage. However, the trade and development debate went on, and it continues to affect fundamental questions of global poverty, inequality, and opportunity. Under a new Democratic administration—or under a Republican administration that demotes the neocons in favor of the more traditional, realist foreign policy establishment—it is likely that economic policy will again become the most important part of America’s interaction with the world. And it is likely that it will remain profoundly undemocratic. [Globalisation] [Protectionism]
• America needs to make a new case for trade
  By Lawrence Summers
  Published: April 27 2008 18:57 | Last updated: April 27 2008 18:57 While the financial crisis dominates current discussion on the US economy, questions regarding America’s future approach to globalisation are looming increasingly large [Globalisation]
• Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
  Message Machine A PENTAGON CAMPAIGN Retired officers have been used to shape terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks.
  By DAVID BARSTOW Published: April 20, 2008 Corrections Appended
  In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
  The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo. To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world. Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
  Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found. The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants.
  Other administrations had made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build relationships with the occasional military analyst. But these were trifling compared with what Ms. Clarke’s team had in mind. Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war. Journalists were secondary. “We didn’t want to rely on them to be our primary vehicle to get information out,” Mr. Meyer said.
  In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment — the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld’s private conference room, the best government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel, the appeals to duty and country, the warm thank you notes from the secretary himself. “Oh, you have no idea,” Mr. Allard said, describing the effect. “You’re back. They listen to you. They listen to what you say on TV.” It was, he said, “psyops on steroids” — a nuanced exercise in influence through flattery and proximity. “It’s not like it’s, ‘We’ll pay you $500 to get our story out,’ ” he said. “It’s more subtle.” The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.
  A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war. “I’m an old intel guy,” said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers’ names.) “And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to brainwash.’ ” “What are you, some kind of a nut?” Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. “You don’t believe in the Constitution?” [Media] [Disinformation] [Corruption] [Military industrial complex]
• Network News in Denial
  By Ari Melber
  While most TV news organizations have refused to report or even comment on the bombshell Times article exposing a secret Pentagon propaganda campaign to sell Iraq policy, PBS just aired an important segment on the controversy. PBS's Judy Woodruff kicked off the debate with a disturbing summary of the current media blackout:
  Transcript excerpt from PBS: JUDY WOODRUFF: John Stauber, let me begin with you. The Times spent two years investigating this story. They ultimately had to sue to get documents out of the Pentagon. In your view, what is the essence of the story? What does it say that the Pentagon did? JOHN STAUBER, Center for Media and Democracy: Well, Judy, first of all, congratulations to the NewsHour for doing this report. And it's a shame on the networks who were duped this way that they didn't show up to defend or explain their actions. What happened here was a psy-ops campaign, an incredible government propaganda campaign whereby Donald Rumsfeld and Torie Clark, the head of public relations for the Pentagon, designed a program to recruit 75, at least 75 former military officers, as your report said, most of them now lobbyists or consultants to military contractors, and insert them, beginning in 2002, before the attack on Iraq was even launched, into the major networks to manage the messages, to be surrogates. And that's the words that are actually used, "message multipliers" for the secretary of defense and for the Pentagon. This program continues right up to now. JUDY WOODRUFF: And is the essence of this that what they did was--what the Pentagon did was illegal? JOHN STAUBER: Yes, what they did was illegal. Now, the Pentagon might contest that, but we've had various laws on the books in our country going back to the 1920s. It is illegal for the U.S. government to propagandize citizens in this way. In my opinion, this war could have never been sold if it were not for this sophisticated propaganda campaign. And what we need is congressional investigation of not just this Pentagon military analyst program, but all the rest of the deception and propaganda that came out of the Bush administration and out of the Pentagon that allowed them to sell and manage this war. [Media] [Disinformation]
• Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World
  By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL Published: April 26, 2008
  Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya. In the United States, FreshDirect proclaims kiwi season has expanded to “All year!” now that Italy has become the world’s leading supplier of New Zealand’s national fruit, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. Consumers in not only the richest nations but, increasingly, the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography. [Environment] [Food miles]
• Mill Hill Populism
  By Bob Moser
  This article appeared in the May 12, 2008 edition of The Nation. It's a bright, mellow, short-sleeve April evening in the troubled pinelands of south central North Carolina. Except for the waspish drone of lawnmowers and the occasional whoosh of a car sliding along Highway 220, this town of 1,700 is almost eerily quiet--partly because, with gas costing what it does, people can't afford to do much driving around. But it's mostly because of the big yawning silence at the center of Biscoe, where the mill used to be. [Offshoring]
• Hillary Strangelove
  Globe Editorial April 27, 2008
  AMERICANS have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the rhetoric in a campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be crossed. Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC's "Good Morning America" that, if she were president, she would "totally obliterate" Iran if Iran attacked Israel.
  This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world.
  less restrained reaction came from an editorial in the Saudi-based paper Arab News. Being neighbors of Iran, the Saudis and the other Gulf Arabs have the most to fear from Iran's nuclear program and its drive to become the dominant power in the Gulf. But precisely because they are most at risk from Iran's regional ambitions, the Saudis want a carefully considered American approach to Iran, one that balances firmness and diplomatic engagement. The Saudi paper called Clinton's nuclear threat "the foreign politics of the madhouse," saying, "it demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has distinguished Bush's foreign relations."
  A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran - and, presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran - should not be answering the White House phone at any time of day or night. [Myopia] [Exceptionalism]
• Letters Give C.I.A. Tactics a Legal Rationale
  Published: April 27, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law. [Human rights] [Bizarre] [Exceptionalism]  
• Karzai Is Said to Be Safe After Gunfire
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 27, 2008 Filed at 2:39 a.m. ET KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Automatic gunfire broke out at a ceremony in Kabul on Sunday, forcing the Afghan president and other dignitaries to take cover. A Defense Ministry spokesman said President Hamid Karzai, all Cabinet members and foreign diplomats were safe. Two lawmakers were reported wounded. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack against Karzai, saying four militants with suicide vests and guns were nearby.
• Afghan Leader Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War
  By CARLOTTA GALL Published: April 26, 2008 KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the British and American conduct of the war here on Friday, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions. Mr. Karzai said that he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and that the continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging Taliban from coming forward to lay down their arms. He criticized the American-led coalition as prosecuting the war on terrorism in Afghan villages, saying the real terrorist threat lay in sanctuaries of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
• Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats
  By NEELA BANERJEE Published: April 26, 2008 FORT RILEY, Kan. — When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending. [human rights]
• The last excuse for the Iraq war is founded on a myth
  Seeing the second world war as a pure struggle to defeat an evil dictator has led us into foreign policy traps ever since Peter Wilby The Guardian, Friday April 25 2008 Now it is clear that Saddam Hussein had no WMD, that al-Qaida has become stronger in Iraq, and that liberal democracy has failed to spread through the Middle East, one fallback justification for the Iraq invasion remains: it overthrew a murderous, fascist dictator. Even if it went catastrophically wrong, runs the argument, the invasion had a good, liberal, humanitarian cause embedded in it. In that sense, as Tony Blair often suggested, it was like the second world war. Much of what the allies did between 1939 and 1945 - the blitz on German towns and cities, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - may have been morally questionable, but the ultimate war aim of overthrowing fascist regimes was irreproachable. But was the second world war quite what we think it was?
  Romanticising the second world war has led us into foreign policy traps ever since. We look for new crusades against new Hitlers and new Mussolinis. We yearn to cheer our young men into "good wars", to fight once more against the simple badness of fascism. Tony Blair thought he could detect a national interest in fighting Saddam because he was so anxious to emulate Churchill and defeat "evil". Hitler was monstrous and wicked; but we fought him, not for that reason, but because he was trying to make his country a rival great power, using force where necessary. Other leaders, including British and American, have pursued similar foreign policies. As Taylor observed, there was nothing especially wrong with Hitler on the international stage except that he was a German. Equally, there was nothing wrong with Saddam except that he was an Iraqi. The difference between him in 2003 and Hitler in 1939 was that the latter posed a genuine threat and there was no need to quote liberal or humanitarian justifications.
• U.S. angry as Pakistan seeks peace deal with Islamists
  By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2008   ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's new government is negotiating a peace deal with militants in the Taliban-controlled Waziristan region, the rugged mountainous area that's thought to be Osama bin Laden's refuge. The move reflects the changing approach of America's longtime ally in the war on terror, and news of the talks set off alarm bells in Washington Wednesday.
• His Other Car Is a Whirlybird
  Prince William has made creative use of a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter. (By Sgt. Graham Sparks Via Associated Press) Enlarge Photo By Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, April 24, 2008; Page C01 LONDON, April 23 -- Prince William has been buzzing all over England in his new ride -- a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter -- like a giddy teenager with a brand new driver's license. Hours after getting his pilot's wings on April 11, the future king whump-whumped his big chopper into London to pick up his little brother, Prince Harry. Then he steered his double-rotor, heavy-lift bird 75 miles out to the Isle of Wight -- so he and Harry could go to their cousin's bachelor party. There was a bit of harrumphing. Privilege is one thing. But a 25-year-old using a $10 million military helicopter to fly to a booze-up struck some as a bit much. [Corruption]  
• Israelis Claim Secret Agreement With U.S.
  Americans Insist No Deal Made on Settlement Growth By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 24, 2008; Page A14 A letter that President Bush personally delivered to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon four years ago has emerged as a significant obstacle to the president's efforts to forge a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians during his last year in office. Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli prime minister, said this week that Bush's letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though Bush's peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements across Palestinian territories on the West Bank. In an interview this week, Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this understanding in a secret agreement reached between Israel and the United States in the spring of 2005, just before Israel withdrew from Gaza.
• US stance wrinkles Delhi red carpet for Ahmadinejad
  24 Apr 2008, 0212 hrs IST,Chidanand Rajghatta,TNN WASHINGTON: New Delhi may be waiting to roll out the red carpet for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next week, but Hillary Clinton has said she will not hesitate to annihilate Iran if it messes around with US ally Israel when she is in the White House. The former First Lady issued an unusually muscular warning to Tehran on Tuesday when she abandoned her typically cautious foreign policy utterances and threatened to "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it were to launch a nuclear attack against Israel)," Clinton said, responding, somewhat unusually, to a hypothetical question. "And I want them to understand that... in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel we would be able to totally obliterate them." She then added, "That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic." The potential US presidents comment comes on the heels of a Washington advice to India to cool its ties with Iran just ahead of Ahmadinejads visit to New Delhi next week, a suggestion that was snubbed by India as it seeks to repair ties damaged by its vote against Iran at the IAEA. Ahmadinejad will be in New Delhi only for a few hours on April 29 on his way to Sri Lanka, but the layover will include a meeting with PM Manmohan Singh during which they are expected to discuss issues relating to energy supplies. India appears to be re-evaluating the energy pipeline from Iran option following the democratic turnaround in Pakistan. In a surprising twist, Pakistan has now begun to say it does not need any US intervention in its ties with India and the two countries are capable of addressing issues bilaterally — the same stand that India has taken vis-a-vis Iran. All this points to the gradual loss of American leverage and prestige in the region. [Decline] [India US]
• Middle East Money Starts Flowing to Asia
  Arab investors have typically looked West, rather than to China and India. But with oil at over $100 a barrel, that's changing in a big way
  by Bruce Einhorn Standard Chartered banker V. Shankar, head of corporate finance and private banking in Singapore, these days spends much of his time focused on the Middle East. Three years ago, he says, he didn't have a single M&A or project finance banker in the Gulf. Today, Standard Chartered has a team of 50 scouring the region for deals. And they're going to get busier, he predicts, as more investors from oil and gas-rich states in the Gulf look to Asia's giant emerging economies. "This is really the beginning," says Shankar. "You will see a lot of this happening." [Realignment]
• Afghanistan’s Vietnam portent
  Paul Rogers
  The demolition of a French empire at Dien Bien Phu is inspiration to a Taliban aiming to erode the resolve of the United States and its allies, says Paul Rogers (This article was first published on 17 April 2008) 20 - 04 - 2008 There have been many suggestions among media and military analysts since 2003 of possible parallels between the war in Iraq and the United States imbroglio in Vietnam that ended so humiliatingly in 1975. The argument is most prominently made by critics of both wars, though it has also been articulated by defence scholars or officials concerned that the US learns the "right" lessons from its costly Vietnam experience. Three aspects of this approach are notable, however. First, fewer such comparisons have been made with the conflict in Afghanistan, which arguably in some respects offers a closer "fit" with the Vietnam war than does Iraq. Second, the Vietnam precedent is invoked as if the devastating wars in that country started only with the significant American involvement in the mid-1950s and later, and almost completely ignores the earlier, post-1945 clash of arms between Vietnamese nationalists and French colonialists. Third, when parallels (whether Iraqi or Afghan) are drawn, they tend to be presented exclusively from the viewpoint of the Americans. It is as if "only" the United States (and by extension western forces or combatants in general) have the capacity or the interest to draw lessons from the past.
• The Taliban talk the talk
  By Syed Saleem Shahzad KARACHI - With the destruction of a bridge on the Indus Highway in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) region of Darra Adamkhel last weekend, the Taliban have taken another step towards choking the supplies that flood through Pakistan to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mission in Afghanistan. At the same time, the Taliban believe an agreement Russia concluded with NATO at its summit last week will not alleviate the situation. Moscow agreed to the transit of food and non-military cargo and "some types of non-lethal military equipment" across Russia to Afghanistan. NATO is acutely aware that the 70% of its supplies that enter Afghanistan through Pakistan are in jeopardy with the Taliban's new focus on cutting transit routes.
• Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’
  By ADAM LIPTAK Published: April 23, 2008 The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
  This series of articles examines commonplace aspects of the American justice system that are actually unique in the world. Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.
  China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. (That number excludes hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention, most of them in China’s extrajudicial system of re-education through labor, which often singles out political activists who have not committed crimes.)
  Most state court judges and prosecutors in the United States are elected and are therefore sensitive to a public that is, according to opinion polls, generally in favor of tough crime policies. In the rest of the world, criminal justice professionals tend to be civil servants who are insulated from popular demands for tough sentencing. Mr. Whitman, who has studied Tocqueville’s work on American penitentiaries, was asked what accounted for America’s booming prison population. “Unfortunately, a lot of the answer is democracy — just what Tocqueville was talking about,” he said. “We have a highly politicized criminal justice system.” [Human rights] [Double standards] [Democracy] [China confrontation]
• Prison Brief - Highest to Lowest Rates
  Entire world - Prison Population Totals
  For more details about the figures of any country, please click on the name of that country
• Japanese and American War Atrocities, Historical Memory and Reconciliation
  Mark Selden
  War Crimes, Atrocities and State Terrorism
  The controversies that continue to swirl around the Nanjing Massacre, the military comfort women, Unit 731 and other Japanese military atrocities rooted in colonialism and the Asia Pacific War are critical not only to understanding the dynamics of war, peace, and terror in the long twentieth century. They are also vital for understanding war memory and denial, with implications for peace and regional accommodation in the Asia Pacific region and the US-Japan relationship. [1] This article offers a comparative framework for understanding war atrocities and the ways in which they are remembered, forgotten and memorialized. It examines a number of high profile atrocities in an effort to understand their character and the reasons why recognizing and accepting responsibility for their actions have been so difficult. Neither committing atrocities nor suppressing their memories is the exclusive property of a single nation. The issues examined here begin with atrocities committed during the Asia Pacific War and continue to the present. What explains the fact that Japanese denial and refusal to provide compensation to victims has long been the subject of sharp domestic and international contention, while there has been relatively little analysis of United States atrocities, less criticism or recrimination for that nation’s commission and denial of atrocities, and still less demand for reparations? What are the consequences of this difference for the two nations and the contemporary international relations of the Asia Pacific? [Double standards]
• Iraqi Christians Struggle With Fear After Slayings
  Recent Priest Killings Follow Years of Violence, Leaders Say Lamia Sheet looks at the coffin of her husband, the Rev. Youssef Adel, an Assyrian Orthodox priest shot this month. (Khalid Mohammed - AP)
  By Sholnn Freeman Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 22, 2008; Page A10 BAGHDAD, April 21 -- At the Rev. Thair Abdal's church, where on Sunday mornings sweet songs of prayer stream from the doorway, the congregation's fear of death leaves the sanctuary half-filled.
  "It's very clear," Abdal said. "Like the light of day, you cannot hide it." Guards with AK-47 assault rifles man the heavy gates outside. Priests remove their black robes and white collars when they travel in the city. Violence in Iraq has declined dramatically since last year, but members of the country's Christian denominations say they are increasingly under threat.
• Life Expectancy Drops for Some U.S. Women
  Historic Reversal, Found in 1,000 Counties, May Be Result of Smoking and Obesity
  By David Brown Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 22, 2008; Page A01
  For the first time since the Spanish influenza of 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women.
• Asian food crisis has political and civil implications
  By Thomas Fuller Friday, April 18, 2008 BANGKOK: Asia's food crisis is spreading beyond the specter of empty stomachs. Politicians are facing the wrath of angry voters, government budgets are being stretched to pay for increased food subsidies and the potential for civil unrest looms, especially if the cost of essential items like cooking oil and rice continues to climb.
• The rise of the new energy world order
  By Michael T Klare Apr 17, 2008 Oil at US$110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live - trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies. Energy of all sorts was once hugely abundant, making possible the worldwide economic expansion of the past six decades. This expansion benefited the United States above all - along with its "First World" allies in Europe and the Pacific. Recently, however, a select group of former "Third World" countries - China and India in particular - have sought to participate in this energy bonanza by industrializing their economies and selling a wide range of goods to international markets. This, in turn, has led to an unprecedented spurt in global energy consumption - a 47% rise in the past 20 years alone, according to the US Department of Energy (DoE). [Energy] [Globalisation]
• Nepal’s Maoist landslide
  Prashant Jha An electoral earthquake reflects the social distance that had grown between Kathmandu's elite and media and Nepal's people, says Prashant Jha. 16 - 04 - 2008 Prashant Jha is a political analyst and commentator with the Nepali Times. He also writes for Himal South Asian and other publications The results of the general election in Nepal on 10 April 2008, won overwhelmingly by the Maoists - officially the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) - have come as a complete shock. Many people thought the former armed rebels would be a distant third, winning perhaps fifteen-to-twenty of the 240 seats directly elected to the constituent assembly under a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system (335 of the remainder are elected under proportional representation). Some argued that the Maoists would do better than conventional wisdom in the capital Kathmandu suggested, giving them about thirty-to-forty of the FPTP seats. Only a few voices sensed the people's desperate yearning for change, the Maoist base among the young and marginalised, and flagged the possibility of the party coming in second - or first. Yet the outcome - with the Maoists taking 114 out of the 208 seats declared at the time of
  India is in panic mode. Its emotional descent from the high of witnessing successful elections on the evening of the vote to the depression of the next day was steep. New Delhi's diplomats on the ground are completely taken aback, forced now both to answer their political leadership's questions on why they got it so wrong and to brainstorm about what to do next. There is a danger that some in Delhi may be tempted to subvert the result, by attempting to stitch together a National Congress-UML-Madheshi forces alliance, thus resorting to manipulative politics in an effort to keep the Maoists out of office writing - has taken even the Maoists by surprise. Why did all of us get it so wrong?
• Asia pushes, West resists: The New Asian Hemisphere by Kishore Mahbubani
  Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
  When world orders are on the cusp of change, ascendant challengers push for acceptance as equals of dominant but declining powers. If the latter try to stop the inevitable and cling to status quo-preservation, conflict is likely. The guaranteed formula to avoid a costly clash with upwardly mobile aspirants is for custodians of the old order to accept them rather than to squelch their progress. At this moment in world history, China and India are pushing for recognition and status on the global stage. [Reassertion]
• US goes for the jugular in Pakistan
  15 Apr 2008, 0030 hrs IST,Chidanand Rajghatta,TNN WASHINGTON: Finally acknowledging that Pakistan represents a clear and present danger to American and world security, the Bush administration is trying to get a stranglehold on the country’s nuclear weapons. In the latest move, Washington has sought direct access to Pakistan’s Nuclear Command Authority by posting an officer at the US embassy in Islamabad to liaise with the body that controls the country’s nuclear weapons. The demand, first reported in Pakistani newspapers Jang and News , comes even as US president George Bush said in a TV interview on the weekend that a future 9/11 kind of attack would most likely emanate from Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
• The Three Trillion Dollar War
  Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes When the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Americans were told Iraqi oil would cover the costs of the war and rebuilding. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld scoffed at estimates of $100 billion. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Harvard University professor Linda Bilmes raised a stir in 2006 by estimating the real cost of the war to be $1 trillion. That estimate has been tripled and the title of their new book is "The Three Trillion Dollar War." Write Stiglitz and Bilmes a question now. They will answer questions for McClatchy readers between April 1 and April 15.
• US Sanctions Send Iran Into the Arms of Asia
  China Hand
  From a Western-centric point of view, the United States and its allies are pushing Iran into a corner. A broader perspective would indicate that we might simply be driving Iran into the arms of Asia. On March 24, Iran’s official media reported that Iran will apply for full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a would-be nascent EU-esque community headed by China and Russia and containing a fistful of continental Asian states
  For those of us who recall Treasury’s role in the North Korea affair, Future Bank looks a lot like Banco Delta Asia in Macau: a small bank in a secondary jurisdiction, blacklisted as a demonstration project and a warning that the United States is ready to take extreme destructive measures against bigger recalcitrant money center banks and territories. [Financial sanctions] [SCO] [Unintended consequences]
• Soaring Asian Rice Prices Spark Global Inflation Fears
  The view that soaring rice prices will cause Asian wages to rise and thus spark global inflation is gaining ground. Rice prices in Asia have hit an all-time high, rising on average 41 percent. The New York Times said Tuesday, "The free ride for American consumers is ending. For two generations, Americans have imported goods produced ever more cheaply from a succession of low-wage countries -- first Japan and Korea, then China, and now increasingly places like Vietnam and India." This report suggests rising rice prices have caused both wages and export prices in Asia to rise. [Inflation] [Globalisation]
• Election, and Maoists, Could Transform Nepal
  "I am not asking for your votes in the traditional sense," Prachanda said, summing up the unease of a revolutionary forced to cast around like a prosaic politician. "My representation here is symbolic. I represent thousands of martyrs."
  His party calls for overhauling the state and abandoning "feudal property relations" for a "capitalistic mode of production." Prachanda promises to improve the economy with a railroad that would link Lhasa, in Tibet, to the Indian border.
  "We are fighting against feudalism, we are not fighting against capitalism," Prachanda said in the interview. "In the phase of our socioeconomic development, it is not possible to have a socialist revolution. We are saying that this is a bourgeois democratic revolution.
  "We will create a conducive atmosphere to have more profit for the capitalist. We are not going to do anything else than that." Not all are convinced, like Kunda Dixit, editor of The Nepali Times, an English-language magazine. "They are talking out of all sides of their mouth," he said.
• Asian Inflation Begins to Sting U.S. Shoppers
  By KEITH BRADSHER Published: April 8, 2008 BAT TRANG, Vietnam — The free ride for American consumers is ending. For two generations, Americans have imported goods produced ever more cheaply from a succession of low-wage countries — first Japan and Korea, then China, and now increasingly places like Vietnam and India.
  But mounting inflation in the developing world, especially Asia, is threatening that arrangement, and not just in China, where rising energy and labor costs have already made exports to the United States more expensive, but in the lower-cost alternatives to China, too. “Inflation is the major threat to Asian countries,” said Jong-Wha Lee, the head of the Asian Development Bank’s office of regional economic integration. It is also a threat to Western consumers because Asian exporters, even in very poor countries, are passing their rising costs on to customers. [Globalisation] [Inflation]  
• Kashmir Says Come On In, the Tee Times Are Safe
  By AMELIA GENTLEMAN Published: April 8, 2008 SRINAGAR, Kashmir — Naeem Akhtar has an improbable task in the Indian government’s drive to revitalize Kashmir after 18 years of militant violence: rebranding this heavily militarized Himalayan region as a global golfing destination. Mr. Akhtar, who is permanent secretary to the government tourism department, the most senior official in charge of tourism in Kashmir, readily admits he has a difficult challenge. “We face a lot of uncomfortable questions,” he said last month, staring out at the empty fairways of the Royal Spring Golf Course here. “Tourists travel to relax. A tourist doesn’t want to come to a place that creates apprehension in his mind.” Peace talks between India and Pakistan have inched forward in recent years, and violence in Kashmir, which peaked at 4,507 fatalities in 2001, dropped to its lowest level since 1990, with 777 fatalities last year, only 164 of them civilians [sic]. As the violence wanes, tourism is undergoing a tentative recovery, although the United States and most European countries still advise their citizens not to visit Kashmir, excluding the safer Ladakh region. In 2007, 450,000 tourists came, 25,000 of them foreigners, and Mr. Akhtar hopes to double that number this year “if something very bad doesn’t happen.” But a gun battle between security forces and Islamist militants a week ago on the outskirts of Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir, attracted unwelcome headlines, and memories endure of the violence that has long crippled the region as the Indian Army fights insurgents who are backed, India claims, by Pakistan.
  But the brochures make no mention of the disquieting presence of an estimated 600,000 Indian soldiers, some of them visible at intervals of around 100 yards along the roadside, in bullet-resistant vests, rifles dangling at their sides. [Separatism] [Double standards] [Tourism] [Media]
• Ultra-Orthodox passengers riot aboard El Al plane over screening of film
  By Zohar Blumenkrantz, Haaretz Correspondent Ultra-Orthodox passengers on an El Al flight to Kiev caused a serious commotion Sunday morning after, according to their testimony, a movie was screened on board the plane. The Haredi men, en route to Uman, Ukraine to visit the gravesite of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, said that the airline had promised not to show a film during the flight. When the screens began to unfold in preparation for the screening, the ultra-Orthodox men began going wild. "It was a pretty frightening sight," a passenger on the plane described the events. According to witnesses, the men began shouting and physically trying to prevent the movie screens from unfolding. Advertisement This is not the first time that El Al is faced with problems with ultra-Orthodox people on board flights to religious sites. In 2002, a flight crew had to prevent an ultra-Orthodox passenger, flying from Israel to Britain, from wrapping himself in plastic bags. The pilot was forced to return to Ben Gurion International airport in order to remove the passenger from the plane. The passenger, a Cohen, wrapped himself in plastic bags for fear that the plane's route would pass through the air above the Holon cemetery and he would consequently become impure. [Religion]
• Can a Democrat change US Middle East policy?
  BY NOAM CHOMSKY (Counterpoint) 3 April 2008 RECENTLY, when Vice-President Cheney was asked by ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz about polls showing that an overwhelming majority of US citizens oppose the war in Iraq, he replied, "So?" "So — you don't care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked. "No," Cheney replied, and explained, "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in public opinion polls." Later, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, explaining Cheney's comments, was asked whether the public should have "input." Her reply: "You had your input. The American people have input every four years, and that's the way our system is set up." That's correct. Every four years the American people can choose between candidates whose views they reject, and then they should shut up. Evidently failing to understand democratic theory, the public strongly disagrees. [Democracy]
• The Yuan’s Unstoppable Rise
  The yuan is strengthening against the U.S. dollar at a rapid pace, ringing in an epoch when renminbi will be increasingly popular around the world. As of April 3, the yuan was valued at 7.0192 per dollar, up 18 percent from July 2005 when the Chinese government implemented exchange rate reform. Since early this year, the yuan has risen more than 4 percent in value against the greenback. Before long it is expected to reach a record 6 to the dollar. Global investment banks predict the yuan will rise about 10 to 15 percent against the U.S. currency this year. Some speculate it will adjust to some 5 yuan per dollar next year.   Pundits expect the strong yuan era to provide a soft landing for the Chinese economy and allow it to move gently from explosive to stable growth. But they worry the strong yuan will deal a considerable blow to South Korean enterprises in China and South Korea's exports there. [Reserve] [China competition]
• Time to End Our Dollar Dependence
  Late last year I flew into Belgium, the capital of the European Union. The moment I saw the notice "1 EURO=U$1.67" at the Brussels Airport money exchange, I sighed: the dollar had depreciated so much. The standard exchange rate that day was one euro for $1.45, but the cash buying rate is naturally higher because of transport and holding costs. In any case, the euro-dollar exchange rate that day was excessively low for the dollar. I cursed myself for having exchanged my won for dollars. I took a sizable hit on the exchange, and I wasn't happy. To make matters worse, I invited ill luck and embarrassed myself. Just as I was collecting my euro notes at the exchange counter, I noticed a different rate on my receipt: "1 EURO=U$1.70." This was more expensive than the posted rate, so I complained to the teller. But actually I had found the source of the trouble. "I'm offended that you seem to have overcharged me," I protested. The response left me speechless: "That exchange rate was posted an hour ago; the dollar has weakened since then... If you don't want to exchange, you can get your dollars back any time." The U.S. dollar is not on the list of foreign currencies that world businesses are buying these days. Most popular in Southeast Asia is the Chinese yuan, and in world exchange markets the Swiss franc, euro, Japanese yen and Canadian and Australian dollars are attractive [Reserve] [Decline]
• Personal Touch of ABC Executive Gets the Scoop
  By BRIAN STELTER Published: April 7, 2008 The television networks have spent the last few weeks in pursuit of an interview with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the United States commander in Iraq, ahead of his testimony to Congress this week on progress in Iraq. So how did ABC land the exclusive story? It could have been the same way the network got into North Korea and Cuba: the personal touch of David Westin, the president of ABC News.
  In 2005, his trip to North Korea was instrumental in securing access to the secluded country for ABC. Later, the correspondent Bob Woodruff was allowed to visit, followed by Diane Sawyer of "Good Morning America." [Media]
• The Idea Factory That Spawned the Internet Turns 50
  By Stephen Barr Monday, April 7, 2008; Page D01 The best program managers are "freewheeling zealots" with big ideas. The staff has been called "100 geniuses connected by a travel agent." And the boss describes his agency as a home for "radical innovation." It's DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a dinner for 1,700 alumni, friends and partners Thursday night in Washington. From its beginning, the Defense Department agency has looked worldwide for fundamental scientific and technology discoveries ready for conversion into a blockbuster asset for the military.
  Researchers are working on a two-way speech translation system that would permit soldiers to go anywhere in the world and understand the people around them. The idea, Tether said, is to create a miniature headset that would immediately translate a foreign language into English and feed it to an earpiece. In turn, a reply by an English speaker would be converted into the appropriate language and broadcast from small speakers on the headset. When the technology is perfected, "the world will become a safer place. People will be able to talk to one another and understand one another," Tether said [Bizarre] [Imperialism]
• U.S. Shaken by Weakening Dollar
  The U.S., the world's largest economy, accounting for 27 percent of the world GDP, is currently gripped by a sense of crisis. The U.S. status in the world economy is being shaken as the value of the dollar continues to fall in the wake of enormous trade deficits and a nationwide housing recession. [Reserve] [Decline]
• Korea Suffers in U.S.-China-Japan 'Currency Wars'
  The Korean economy is in trouble due to strategies by the Unites States, China and Japan to keep their currencies weak. Ever sandwiched between the Great Powers, Korea is suffering since their battles strengthen the won and hurt its export-dependent economy. [Sandwich]
• Asia to Take Over From U.S. as Growth Engine: SERI
  Asia will take on the mantle of the U.S. as the locomotive of global economic growth while the world’s largest economy suffers the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis, a private think tank predicts. The Samsung Economic Research Institute, in a report on the subprime credit crunch and the future of the world economy on Wednesday, said the mortgage crisis will have a negative impact on the U.S. economy until 2008 due to a fall in housing prices. It said the global economy "has gradually decoupled from the U.S. economy since 2003." [Decline]
• 2008 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers
  The 2007 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE) is the twenty-first in an annual series that surveys significant foreign barriers to U.S. exports. The report provides, where feasible, quantitative estimates of the impact of these foreign practices on the value of U.S. exports. Information is also included on actions taken to eliminate barriers
• China denies passing Iranian nuclear attempt information to IAEA
  www.chinaview.cn 2008-04-03 21:11:31 Print BEIJING, April 3 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Thursday denied reports that China had provided intelligence on Iran's attempt to develop nuclear weapons to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying the report was fabricated and born out of ulterior motives. "The report is made of nothing and has originated from those with ulterior motives," said Jiang Yu, when asked by a journalist to respond to the report.

• "European Universalism Is Used to Justify Imperialism": An Interview with Immanuel Wallerstein
  by Olivier Doubre
  Sociologist and historian at Yale University, Immanuel Wallerstein has described the globalization of capitalism, and today he criticizes Western "universalist" justifications of expansionism. In your book European Universalism, you revisit the 16th-century debate between Las Casas and Sepulveda on the American Indians. In what respect does this debate seem to you particularly relevant to the debate on universalism? Immanuel Wallerstein: The intellectual justifications that Sepulveda gave, in the 16th century, to justify the conquests of the Indian lands are, almost word for word, the same ones used for colonization, and the ones that are given today for what is called intervention. Moreover, Las Casas' responses at that time seem to me much clearer than many criticisms of intervention today. Sepulveda's arguments were as follows: the others are barbarians, we must protect the innocent (whom the barbarians massacre) -- constant justification for all interventions -- and, finally, it is necessary to permit the diffusion of universalism, supposedly universal values. At that time, it concerned evangelization and the expansion of the Christendom. Today, these values are "freedom and democracy." But they are in fact the same thing. [Imperialism]
• European Universalism
  Filed under: Civil Society, Imperialism, Non-Violent Direct Action, Zimbabwe — gowans @ 4:22 pm
  By Stephen Gowans 29 March 2008 “The intellectual justifications that Sepulveda gave in the 16th century to justify the conquests of the Indian lands are,” says Immanuel Wallerstein, “almost word for word, the same ones used for colonization, and the ones that are given today for what is called intervention.” He continues: “At that time, it concerned evangelization and the expansion of Christendom. Today, these values are ‘freedom and democracy.’ But they are in fact the same thing.” (1) George Bush, in his own way, underscores Wallerstein’s point. Freedom and democracy, he writes in his 2002 National Security Strategy, “are right and true for every person, in every society – and the duty of protecting these values against their enemies is the common calling of freedom-loving people.” (2) [Imperialism]
• American warplanes join Iraqi troops in taking the fight to Shia militia
  · Sadr stronghold in capital comes under attack · British army holds fire as battles intensify Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Saturday March 29 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday March 29 2008 on p19 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:13 on March 29 2008. US aircraft attacked Shia militia in Basra for the first time in the current round of fighting as intense battles continued between supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr and tens of thousands of Iraqi forces in a crackdown personally supervised by Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. British troops, based at the city's airport, were kept away from the operation described by George Bush as "a defining moment in the history of Iraq". American fighter jets dropped bombs on a mortar team and a militia stronghold in Basra, said Major Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman. The number of casualties was unknown. As protests spread across Iraq, US aircraft also attacked Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, killing at least five civilians, according to Iraqi police and hospitals. "There have been engagements going on in and around Sadr City. We've engaged the enemy with artillery, we've engaged the enemy with aircraft, we've engaged the enemy with direct fire," Major Mark Cheadle, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, said later. Defying a curfew, protesters again attacked the US-protected Green Zone in the capital with mortars and rockets. Elsewhere at least 22 people, including six civilians, were killed in fierce fighting in the southern cities of Mahmoudiya, Nasiriya - now held by elements of Sadr's Mahdi army - and Kut, according to reports from police and army officials cited by news agencies. In Basra, Abdel Qader Jassim, the defence minister, admitted Iraqi security forces were "surprised" by the resistance they had met. At least 120 people, described by Iraqi commanders as the "enemy", were reported to have been killed and 450 wounded in four days of fighting.
• U.S. pressure on Pakistan to attack militants may backfire
  By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 AP Pakistanis burn a U.S. flag Tuesday to protest the visit of U.S. officials John Negroponte and Richard Boucher. | View larger image ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Top U.S. officials on Thursday publicly questioned the plans of Pakistan's newly elected civilian government to negotiate with militants in the country's border region with Afghanistan and instead urged the continued use of military force. Concluding a visit that's been widely criticized for taking place before a new government was fully formed, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said that talking with many of the insurgents is unthinkable.  
• Assault by Iraq on Shiite Forces Stalls in Basra
  By JAMES GLANZ and STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: March 28, 2008 BAGHDAD — American-trained Iraqi security forces failed for a third straight day to oust Shiite militias from the southern city of Basra on Thursday, even as President Bush hailed the operation as a sign of the growing strength of Iraq’s federal government. The fighting in Basra against the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of the political movement led by the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, set off clashes in cities throughout Iraq. Major demonstrations were staged in a number of Shiite areas of Baghdad, including Sadr City, the huge neighborhood that is Mr. Sadr’s base of power. Although Mr. Bush praised the Iraqi government for leading the fighting, it also appeared that the Iraqi government was pursuing its own agenda, calling the battles a fight against "criminal" elements but seeking to marginalize the Mahdi Army. The Americans share the Iraqi government’s hostility toward what they call rogue elements of the Mahdi Army but will also be faced with the consequences if the battles among Shiite factions erupt into more widespread unrest
• U.S. Armor Forces Join Offensive In Baghdad Against Sadr Militia
  Americans Appear To Take the Lead As Iraqi Units Wait
  By Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, March 28, 2008; Page A01 BAGHDAD, March 27 -- U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting. Four U.S. Stryker armored vehicles were seen in Sadr City by a Washington Post correspondent, one of them engaging Mahdi Army militiamen with heavy fire. The din of American weapons, along with the Mahdi Army's AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, was heard through much of the day. U.S. helicopters and drones buzzed overhead.
• Iran Wants Compensation for UN Sanctions
  By EDITH M. LEDERER – 19 hours ago UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iran is demanding compensation for what it says are unlawful sanctions imposed by the U.N. for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, the Mideast nation's foreign minister said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. In the 20-page letter, Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran rejects the sanctions resolutions because the U.N. Security Council went beyond its powers, and its actions are inconsistent with the U.N. Charter. [UNUS] [Legality]
• Iran wants full SCO membership
  - Iran is no longer satisfied with its observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). -
  MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov)
  It hopes that becoming a full member will help it avoid international isolation. On March 24 in Tajikistan, Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said that Iran had submitted an official request for full membership to the SCO Secretariat. According to the minister, Tajikistan supports Iran's request. The SCO is an intergovernmental security organization founded in 2001. Russia, Tajikistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan are full members and Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia have observer status. Proceeding from economic activity and feasibility, Iran has enough reasons to become a full member of the organization. It is one of the key economic players in Greater Central Asia, the organization's zone of operation, where the United States is trying to strengthen its position to Moscow's displeasure. Iran is involved in the construction of two tunnels and the Sangtudin and Shurab hydropower plants in Tajikistan, the largest power plants in the region. It is contributing to the construction of a railroad that will link Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran, and has also been entrusted to establish free economic zones in Tajikistan. Additionally, Iran is working hard to get a foothold in the markets of other Central Asian republics, such as Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.
  China is also the most ardent opponent of Iran in the organization.
• Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Arms for Afghans
  By C. J. CHIVERS Published: March 27, 2008 This article was reported by C. J. Chivers, Eric Schmitt and Nicholas Wood and written by Mr. Chivers. MUNITIONS Problems with old munitions were exposed recently by explosions at an Albanian depot. Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. [Corruption]
• Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison
  By JODY ROSEN Published: March 27, 2008 For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words "Mary had a little lamb" on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison’s invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades.
• Iraqi Army’s Assault on Militias in Basra Stalls
  By JAMES GLANZ Published: March 27, 2008 BAGHDAD — An assault by thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police officers to regain control of the southern port city of Basra stalled Wednesday as Shiite militiamen in the Mahdi Army fought daylong hit-and-run battles and refused to withdraw from the neighborhoods that form their base of power there.
  American officials have presented the Iraqi Army’s attempts to secure the port city as an example of its ability to carry out a major operation against the insurgency on its own. A failure there would be a serious embarrassment for the Iraqi government and for the army, as well as for American forces eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively on their own.
• U.S. Steps Up Unilateral Strikes in Pakistan
  Officials Fear Support From Islamabad Will Wane
  By Robin Wright and Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, March 27, 2008; Page A01 The United States has escalated its unilateral strikes against al-Qaeda members and fighters operating in Pakistan's tribal areas, partly because of anxieties that Pakistan's new leaders will insist on scaling back military operations in that country, according to U.S. officials. Washington is worried that pro-Western President Pervez Musharraf, who has generally supported the U.S. strikes, will almost certainly have reduced powers in the months ahead, and so it wants to inflict as much damage as it can to al-Qaeda's network now, the officials said.   [Imperialism] [Democracy] [Double standards]  
• Foreign Wealth Funds Defend U.S. Investments
  Profit, Not Politics, Is Motive, Officials Say By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, March 27, 2008; Page A01 KUWAIT CITY -- It was not Bader al-Saad's idea to buy huge chunks of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. It was early January and Saad, managing director of one of the world's largest investment funds, was in his office as usual, reviewing potential deals in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, when the banks asked him to invest, he recalled. "They called us. . . . We receive calls on most transactions," said Saad, whose fund bought stakes of $3 billion in Citigroup and $2 billion in Merrill Lynch. The increasing pace of acquisitions in the United States by sovereign wealth funds such as Saad's Kuwait Investment Authority is raising concern about their goals and motivations. Run by nation-states to invest their government revenues, the funds are estimated to control $2.5 trillion and are projected to have $12 trillion by 2015. The six Arab states on the Persian Gulf's western shore, which control nearly a quarter of the world's oil supply, provided more than half of the money currently in the funds, according to Morgan Stanley. At one extreme, the funds have been characterized as saviors, propping up the struggling U.S. economy with capital infusions. At the other, there are fears that their investments could turn political, that the funds could buy stakes in entities that could someday be used to compromise the security of the United States while furthering their national interests.
• Toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein
  From SourceWatch Toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein was a staged event, by U.S. soldiers, for the media. A Reuters long-shot of Firdos Square where the statue was located (see below) shows that the Square was nearly empty when Saddam was torn down. The Square was sealed off by the U.S. military. The 200 people milling about were U.S. Marines, international press and Iraqis. However, the media portrayed it as an event of the Iraqi people [Disinformation] [media]
• US business wants more immigrant workers
  By Daniel Pimlott in New York Published: March 20 2008 02:00 | Last updated: March 20 2008 02:00 Tel Ganesan's biggest worry is immigration. But unlike the politicians and media opinionators who focus on the dangers to the US posed by an estimated 12m "illegals" and call for ever-tighter controls, Mr Ganesan wants to open the doors to more foreigners. "It is my number one concern," he says. "Its not financial, it's not operational, it is simply getting the right talent."
  In recent years American technology companies such as Microsoft and Intel, and Indian outsourcing companies such as Infosys and Satyam Computer Services, have been among the top sponsors of visas. Their main recipients have been Indians in the technology sector. [Migration] [Offshoring]
• The Military-Petroleum Complex
  Nick Turse | March 24, 2008 In November 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld told Steve Kroft of CBS that U.S. saber-rattling toward Iraq had “nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.” In 2003, Rumsfeld called the assertion that the United States had invaded Iraq to get at its oil “utter nonsense.” (“We don’t take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people’s . . . resources, their oil. That’s just not what the United States does.”) In 2005, speaking to American troops in Fallujah, Rumsfeld reiterated the point: “The United States, as you all know better than any, did not come to Iraq for oil.” Strong denials for sure, but were they true?
  the Pentagon is “the single largest consumer of petroleum fuels in the United States.” In fact, it’s the world’s largest energy consumer, according to Shachtman.
• Is 'success' of U.S. surge in Iraq about to unravel?
  By Leila Fadel and Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008 BAGHDAD — A cease-fire critical to the improved security situation in Iraq appeared to unravel Monday when a militia loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr began shutting down neighborhoods in west Baghdad and issuing demands of the central government. Simultaneously, in the strategic southern port city of Basra, where Sadr's Mahdi militia is in control, the Iraqi government launched a crackdown in the face of warnings by Sadr's followers that they'll fight government forces if any Sadrists are detained. By 1 a.m. Arab satellite news channels reported clashes between the Mahdi Army and police in Basra. The freeze on offensive activity by Sadr's Mahdi Army has been a major factor behind the recent drop in violence in Iraq, and there were fears that the confrontation that's erupted in Baghdad and Basra could end the lull in attacks, assassinations, kidnappings and bombings.
• In Fallujah, Peace Through Brute Strength
  Iraqi City's Fragile Security Flows From Hussein-Era Tactics By Sudarsan Raghavan Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, March 24, 2008; Page A01 FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The city's police chief, Col. Faisal Ismail al-Zobaie, a husky man with a leathered face and a firm voice that resonates with authority, ordered an aide to shut his office door. He turned to his computer. Across the screen flashed a video, purportedly made by the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
  In the video, branches are thrown into a pit the size of a coffin, then doused with kerosene and ignited. The camera pans to three blindfolded men, kneeling, mouths sealed with tape. Six armed men in black masks stand behind them. One declares: "These three men fought and killed al-Qaeda. We will punish them according to Islam." The masked men then kick the three into the burning grave. Zobaie angrily turned off the video. "How can we show mercy to those people?" he asked. "Do you want me to show mercy to them if I capture them?" Zobaie, 51, knows the nature of the men in black masks. He is a former insurgent. Now, as the police chief, he has turned against the insurgency, especially al-Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. military showcases Fallujah as a model city where U.S. policies are finally paying off and is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the region to promote the rule of law and a variety of nation-building efforts. [Media] [Imperialism] [Victim] [Double standards]
• Iran announces it is seeking membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
  The Associated Press Published: March 24, 2008 DUSHANBE, Tajikistan: Iran's Foreign Minister said Monday his country has applied to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security group dominated by China and Russia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was created 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security in Central Asia, but with growing interest in membership from countries such as Iran, it has grown into a bloc aimed at defying U.S. interests in the region. Iran currently has observer status in the organization, as do Afghanistan, India, Mongolia and Pakistan. Along with China and Russia, the body's permanent members are the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. [SCO] [Financial sanctions]
• US, Russia, China in fierce battle to sell fighter jets in Asia
  WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States is bracing for tough competition from Russia and China as cash-flush Asian economies look up to the trio for a new breed of fighter jets to beef up their air forces, experts say. Japan, India, Australia and South Korea are keen to have the most modern, fifth generation, jet fighters while Southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia are reportedly eyeing fourth generation fighters from China.
  US Defense Secretary Robert Gates hinted during a recent Australian visit that Congress may be asked to reconsider the ban. "It is imperative that the United States consider selling some version of the F-22 to maintain a strong deterrent posture in Asia," Fisher said. "I would say categorically that Japan requires a capability of the level of the F-22 in order to sustain a sufficient position to deter China," he said. [China competition] [China confrontation] [arms race]
• The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran
  John McGlynn
  March 20, 2008, destined to be another day of infamy. On this date the US officially declared war on Iran. But it’s not going to be the kind of war many have been expecting. No, there was no dramatic televised announcement by President George W. Bush from the White House oval office.
  A unit within the US Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which issued a March 20 advisory to the world's financial institutions under the title: “Guidance to Financial Institutions on the Continuing Money Laundering Threat Involving Illicit Iranian Activity.” [Financial sanctions] [Imperialism] [Globalisation]
• This crisis could bring the euro centre-stage
  By Wolfgang Münchau
  Published: March 23 2008 15:22 | Last updated: March 23 2008 15:22 We know the credit crisis is a clear and present threat to the global economy. But its most important long-run legacy may not be economic, but geopolitical. I was reminded of that possibility when reading a recent analysis by Professors Menzie Chinn at the University of Wisconsin and Jeffrey Frankel of Harvard*. They ran a simulation showing that the euro would replace the dollar as the world’s largest reserve currency within the next 10 or 15 years. Their analysis is not based on this crisis. But the crisis could easily accelerate the trends they have identified
    The potential geopolitical implications of such a projected shift are immense. For a start, the US will lose its exorbitant privilege – the ability to achieve permanently higher returns on foreign assets than the returns paid to foreigners who invest in the US. The dollar will suddenly cease to be "our currency, and your problem". Influence in international financial institutions will wane. Losing the dollar as the world’s leading international currency not only leads to a loss of political power. It constitutes loss of power. [Reserve] [Decline]
• The euro could surpass the dollar within ten years
  Jeffrey Frankel 18 March 2008 Print   Email Comment   Republish One of the world’s leading international economists explains how the euro could surpass the dollar as the premier international currency and examines the geopolitical implications of such a shift. The International Economy recently asked experts: Ten years from now, which will likely be the next great global currency? My answer is that it just might be the euro. Contrary to fevered popular speculation in the 1990s, the yen and the mark never had the potential to challenge the dollar as the leading international currency: their home economies were smaller than the US and their financial markets less well-developed and liquid than New York. The euro, however, is a credible challenger: Euroland is roughly as big as the United States, and the euro has shown itself a better store of value than the dollar. To be sure, rankings of international currencies change only very slowly. Although the US surpassed the UK in economic size in 1872, in exports in 1915, and as a net creditor in 1917, the dollar did not surpass the pound as number one international currency until 1945. Thus one must account for the lags. In 2005, when Menzie Chinn and I used historical data on central bank holdings of foreign exchange reserves to estimate the determinants, even our pessimistic scenarios did not have the euro overtaking the dollar until 2022. Thus we could not have asserted that the dollar would be dethroned “ten years from now.” But the dollar has continued to lose ground. We have now updated our calculations, particularly to recognize that London is usurping Frankfurt’s role as the financial capital of the euro, notwithstanding that the UK remains outside of EMU. Now we find that the tipping point could come within the ten-year horizon: the euro could overtake the dollar even as early as 2015. [Reserve] [Decline]
• After five days of freedom, 1970s terrorist is sent back to prison·
  New twist in Sarah Jane Olson saga after protests · Administrative error blamed for early release Ewen MacAskill in Washington The Guardian, Monday March 24 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday March 24 2008 on p18 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:04 on March 24 2008. Ex-Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson in court in 1999, after 24 years on the run. Photograph: Nick Ut/AP A member of a 1970s violent US radical group, Sara Jane Olson, was back in custody in California yesterday after only five days of freedom, as protests by Los Angeles police forced the prison department to reverse its decision to free her. The department claimed there had been "an administrative error".  
  The prison department, which is run by California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, announced at the weekend that following a hasty review she would have to go back to Chowchilla women's jail in the state for another year. Olson's lawyers are to challenge the decision in court. One of her lawyers, Shawn Chapman Holley, said the authorities were embarrassed over claims that they had been too lenient. "They're bowing to political pressure. It's like they make up all new rules when it comes to her. It's like we are in some kind of fascist state." [Human rights]
• Peruvian leaders cry foul as Chávez exports healthcare
  · 400,000 Latin Americans take up free surgery offer
  · Humanitarian schemes are political front, says Lima Rory Carroll in Caracas and Andres Schipani in La Paz The Guardian, Monday March 24 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday March 24 2008 on p23 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:09 on March 24 2008. The plane door opened and the elderly visitors, all visually impaired and in some cases blind, shuffled out slowly and carefully into Venezuela. Disease, age and poverty had stolen their eyesight but now they were in the land of Hugo Chávez and that was about to change. A scheme called Misión Milagro - Mission Miracle - had flown them here from Peru for free surgery which would transform their lives. A portrait of Venezuela's president gazed down from the airport terminal. "It is thanks to Chávez we are here," beamed Rosario Vilcavilca, 88, a peasant farmer in a traditional highland skirt. Mission Miracle has helped 400,000 impoverished Latin Americans see again and cast Venezuela's revolutionary leader as the region's humanitarian benefactor. Critics, however, see an agenda behind this and other Venezuelan-linked initatives. They claim Chávez is trying to export populist leftwing rebellions and further tilt the region away from US influence.
• How the myth of food miles hurts the planet
  Ethical shopping just got more complicated. The idea that only local produce is good is under attack. There is growing evidence to suggest that some air-freighted food is greener than food produced in the UK. Robin McKie and Caroline Davies report on how the concept of food miles became oversimplified - and is damaging the planet in the process Robin McKie The Observer, Sunday March 23 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday March 23 2008 on p30 of the Focus section. It was last updated at 00:43 on March 23 2008. Green beans that have been flown in from Kenya. Photograph: Wendy Stone/Corbis Mike Small and his wife, Karen, sat down last Thursday to a dinner of smoked fish pie crusted with mashed potato and served with purple-sprouting broccoli, an unremarkable family meal except for one key factor: every ingredient came from sources close to their home in Burntisland, Fife. 'The fish was Fife-landed, while the potatoes and broccoli were grown on nearby farms,' he says. Nor was this a one-off culinary event. For the past six months Mike and Karen and their two children, Sorley and Alex, have consumed only food and drink bought in their home district. This is the Fife Diet, developed by Mike Small as a response to the environmental dangers posed by carbon-emitting imports of Peruvian avocados, Kenyan green beans, New Zealand lamb and all those other foreign foodstuffs that now fill the shelves of our supermarkets. Each of these imported products involves the emission of carbon dioxide from the planes and ships that brought them to our shores. [IM]
• Central banks float rescue ideas
  By Chris Giles and Krishna Guha in London Published: March 21 2008 22:02 | Last updated: March 21 2008 22:02 Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are actively engaged in discussions about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities as a possible solution to the credit crisis. Such a move would involve the use of public funds to shore up the market in a key financial instrument and restore confidence by ending the current vicious circle of forced sales, falling prices and weakening balance sheets. EDITOR’S CHOICE The four ‘new sheriffs’ of Wall Street - Mar-21Lex: Propping up mortgages - Mar-21Gapper: Why Bear’s bankers should make penance - Mar-21Man in the News: Timothy Geithner - Mar-21Editorial comment: Renew the financial toolbox - Mar-17Fear of further casualties whips up new storm - Mar-14The conversations, part of a broader exchange as to possible future steps in battling financial turmoil, are at an early stage. However, the fact that such a move is being discussed at all indicates the depth of concern that exists over the health of the banking system. It shows how far the policy debate has shifted in recent weeks as the crisis has spread to prime mortgage assets in the US and engulfed Bear Stearns, the investment bank.
• Where has all the rage gone?
  In 1968, fury at the Vietnam war sparked protests and uprisings across the world: from Paris and Prague to Mexico. Tariq Ali considers the legacy 40 years on
  Tariq Ali
  The Guardian, Saturday March 22 2008 This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday March 22 2008 on p46 of the Features & comment section. It was last updated at 01:07 on March 22 2008. Students hurling projectiles against the police on the Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris, May 6 1968. Photograph: Bruno Barbey/Magnum A storm swept the world in 1968. It started in Vietnam, then blew across Asia, crossing the sea and the mountains to Europe and beyond. A brutal war waged by the US against a poor south-east Asian country was seen every night on television. The cumulative impact of watching the bombs drop, villages on fire and a country being doused with napalm and Agent Orange triggered a wave of global revolts not seen on such a scale before or since. If the Vietnamese were defeating the world's most powerful state, surely we, too, could defeat our own rulers: that was the dominant mood among the more radical of the 60s generation.
• Pakistan to Talk With Militants, New Leaders Say
  By JANE PERLEZ Published: March 22, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Faced with a sharp escalation of suicide bombings in urban areas, the leaders of Pakistan’s new coalition government say they will negotiate with the militants believed to be orchestrating the attacks, and will use military force only as a last resort. That talk has alarmed American officials, who fear it reflects a softening stance toward the militants just as President Pervez Musharraf has given the Bush administration a freer hand to strike at militants using pilotless Predator drones. [Democracy]  
• Debt-Gorged British Start to Worry That the Party Is Ending
  By JULIA WERDIGIER Published: March 22, 2008 LONDON — At one point, Alexis Hall had more than 50 pairs of designer shoes and handbags. It never occurred to the 39-year-old media relations executive from Glasgow that her £31,500 in debt ($63,000) would be a problem. of Bloomsbury Financial Planning says loans were too easy to take out. "It was so easy to get the loans and the credit that you almost think the goods are a gift from the shop," she said. "You don’t fully realize that it’s real money you are spending until you actually sit down and consolidate your bills and then it’s a shock." As the United States economy weakens, many Americans are being overwhelmed by personal debt, but Britons are even more profligate. For most of the last decade, consumers here went on a debt-financed spending spree that made them the most indebted rich nation in the world, racking up a record £1.4 trillion in debt ($2.8 trillion) — more than the country’s gross domestic product. By comparison, personal debt in the United States is $13.8 trillion, including mortgage debt, slightly less than the country’s $14 trillion G.D.P.
• Bush erroneously says Iran announced desire for nuclear weapons
  By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Thursday, March 20, 2008 WASHINGTON — President Bush contended that Iran has "declared they want a nuclear weapon to destroy people" and that the Islamic Republic could be hiding a secret program. Iran, however, has never publicly proclaimed a desire for nuclear weapons and has repeatedly insisted that the uranium enrichment program it's operating in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions is for civilian power plants, not warheads. Bush made his assertion Wednesday in an interview marking the Iranian New Year with Radio Farda, a U.S. government-run radio service that broadcasts into Iran in the Farsi language. The White House released the transcript on Thursday.   [Disinformation]
• Pentagon cancels release of controversial Iraq report
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Wednesday canceled plans for broad public release of a study that found no pre-Iraq war link between late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the al Qaida terrorist network. Rather than posting the report online and making officials available to discuss it, as had been planned, the U.S. Joint Forces Command said it would mail copies of the document to reporters — if they asked for it. The report won't be posted on the Internet
• Moscow's Missile Gambit
  By Robert Joseph and J.D. Crouch II Thursday, March 13, 2008; Page A17 Six years ago, President Bush announced the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and our intention to deploy defenses against emerging threats from countries such as North Korea and Iran. Contrary to prevailing expectations, the sky did not fall. Moscow's response, delivered in a statement by President Vladimir Putin, expressed disagreement with the U.S. decision but emphasized that U.S. defenses were not a threat to Russia and that Russia would make major reductions in its strategic offensive forces -- a striking rebuke to the myth that ending the ABM Treaty would lead to an arms race.   [Threat] [neocon]
• The Newly Available 2004 Stryker Report Evaluating Iraqi Failures
  The Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge By DAVID PRICE March 18, 2008 Wikileaks just released the December 2004 "Army Stryker Brigade Initial Impressions Report on Operations in Mosul, Iraq." This document was produced by the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Ft. Leavenworth, and provides an internal view on the Army's late-2004 self-perception of how the occupation was going and outlines perceived military shortcomings in Mosul. Given David Petraeus' role in the occupation and management of Mosul, some elements of the document prefigure Petraeus' push for increased reliance on cultural knowledge for counterinsurgency
• A Bankrupt Superpower: The Collapse of American Power
  By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS March 18, 2008 In his famous book, The Collapse of British Power (1972), Correlli Barnett reports that in the opening days of World War II Great Britain only had enough gold and foreign exchange to finance war expenditures for a few months. The British turned to the Americans to finance their ability to wage war. Barnett writes that this dependency signaled the end of British power. From their inception, America's 21st century wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have been red ink wars financed by foreigners, principally the Chinese and Japanese, who purchase the US Treasury bonds that the US government issues to finance its red ink budgets. [Offshoring] [Decline
• When Henry Kissinger Opines
  Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 229, Mar. 15, 2008 When Henry Kissinger opines in an op-ed in the Washington Post, it behooves us all to pay attention. There is a message there. Kissinger has always presented himself as the supreme "realist" proponent on U.S. imperial policy. But he has also always taken care not to distance himself too far from the conservative political Establishment. Hence, when he opines, he is both telling us where policy is moving and pushing it slightly in a "realist" path, in conjunction with allies inside the administration. He is thus preparing us for a shift in policy. He has now written about Pakistan. What is he telling us? [imperialism] [Dissension]
• In full: Brown security statement
  Here is the full text of Gordon Brown's Commons statement setting out the new National Security Strategy (the response from Conservative leader David Cameron is below): The primary duty of government - our abiding obligation - is, and will always be, the safety of all British people and the protection of the British national interest. So following approval by the National Security Committee and the Cabinet, the Government is today publishing the first national security strategy. It states that while our obligation to protect the British people and the British national interest is fixed and unwavering, the nature of the threats and the risks we face have - in recent decades - changed beyond recognition and confound all the old assumptions about national defence and international security. As the strategy makes clear, new threats demand new approaches. A radically updated and much more coordinated response is now required. For most of the last half century the main threat was unmistakable: a Cold War adversary. Today, the potential threats we face come from far less predictable sources: both state and non-state. [Threat] [Imperialism]
• Why We Said No: Three Diplomats' Duty
  Posted March 20, 2008 | 02:48 AM (EST) by Ann Wright, John Brown, and Brady Kiesling Five years ago this month, the three of us left the US Foreign Service in opposition to the war on Iraq. We were not pacifists. We were professional, non-partisan diplomats bound by our oath of loyalty to the US Constitution. Our job was to build effective relationships with key figures outside the United States. We used our language skills, respectful curiosity, and understanding of local politics to promote US national interests as our president and secretary of state directed.
  The invasion of Iraq had a terrible impact on America's relationship with the world. The tricks of totalitarian manipulation of public opinion the White House used to "sell" the war at home -- simplification of the issues, repetition of empty phrases, demonization of foreigners, and falsification of history -- simply did not work abroad. By counting on such methods, Bush appointees tainted the US informational, educational, and cultural programs that once were the beating heart of America's public diplomacy efforts. [Disinformation] [Softpower]
• New U.N. Security Council Sanctions against Iran via Dubious Data and an Embedded Mainstream Media
  An article I wrote about the third set of UN Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran (S.C. Resolution 1803) was recently published in Telepolis, March 5, 2008. The url is http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/27/27434/1.html Following is an excerpt: “[T]he scenario of how this new set of sanctions has been passed is strikingly similar to the scenario that was employed to create the pretext for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In December 2007, the U.S. government’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was made public. It stated that there was no evidence that Iran is involved with other than the peaceful use of nuclear energy. [Disinformation] [media] [UNUS]
• Outsourcing the Patients
  More U.S. health insurers are slashing costs by sending policyholders overseas for pricey procedures
  by Bruce Einhorn March 24, 2008 For years, Americans have been traveling abroad to save money on elective procedures or dental work. David Boucher, 49, doesn't fit the usual profile for such medical tourists. An assistant vice-president of health-care services at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of South Carolina, he has ample health benefits. But Boucher recently chose to have a colonoscopy at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, mainly to make a point about the expanding options available to Blue Cross customers. And his company happily picked up the $640 tab—a bargain by U.S. standards. Blue Cross and other insurers would like to see more policyholders traveling abroad for medical care. [Services] [Offshoring]
• Pentagon's New Map
  Thomas Barnett's powerpoint presentation on the Pentagon's New Map and the Non-integrating gap
• The Real Eisenhower
  By Ira Chernus Mr. Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin. His latest book is Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity (Stanford University Press, Feb. 2008).
  Privately, “the President said that people are wrong [to fear nuclear weapons], and that perhaps the opinion must be changed.” He and Dulles were “in complete agreement that somehow or other the taboos which surround the use of atomic weapons would have to be destroyed." This exchange came during an NSC discussion about using atomic bombs in Korea. When the Korean War began, Eisenhower indicated in his diary a willingness to use atomic weapons there. When he returned from his pre-inaugural trip to Korea, he told reporters that the enemy there would be impressed “only by deeds—executed under circumstances of our own choosing,” a phrase he borrowed from an article by Dulles. A year later, Eisenhower himself wrote the words that Dulles would speak in his famous “massive retaliation” speech: “The basic decision was to depend primarily on a great capacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of our choosing.” “Maximum massive retaliation remains the crux of our defense,” the president affirmed late in 1957. [Nuclear weapons]
• Five years of hell
  Faheem Hussain Given our distractions with our own problems in Pakistan we are likely to forget an important date, March 20, which marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the US invasion of Iraq. There were large demonstrations throughout the world, but not in Pakistan, on Saturday (March 15), to mark this sad anniversary. Bush and his faithful poodle, Blair (‘Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara’ as Robert Fisk calls him), along with other US puppet states known as the ‘coalition of the willing’, attacked Iraq without provocation, ignoring the UN and the international community, on the pretext that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), which could be used at any moment. The whole world knew that it was a lie. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had not found any evidence of an active WMD programme, which had actually been stopped some years earlier. Subsequent searches by US teams proved that Iraq did not have WMDs when the US attacked it. After five years of US occupation, Iraq as a unified country does not exist. Baghdad is now the most dangerous city in the world. Over a million Iraqis have died violent deaths. 4,000 US soldiers have died. This is not counting the millions of injured Iraqis
  would like to end this article by paying tribute to the thousands of Iraqi freedom fighters who have laid down their lives in the last five years to throw out the invader. Without the heroic resistance put up by these lightly armed urban guerrilla fighters, the US would have been emboldened to attack Iran and Syria immediately following its occupation of Iraq. It is the supreme sacrifice of these brave souls that has brought the most modern army in the history of the world to a full stop if not to its knees. My hats off to them. Sooner or later the Iraqi people will win and the US Army will have to withdraw as it had to from Vietnam, another lesson forgotten. The writer is Visiting Professor of Physics at the School of Science and Engineering, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) [Reassertion] [Islamic resistance]
• OIL and 710
  [Column ] Kim Hyeong-geun, Senior researcher, The Millennium Project (South Korea chapter of the World Future Society) World prices of oil and gold have hit fresh highs. Why are oil prices on the rise? Is there too little supply compared to demand? If this theory were right, any student in middle or high school could understand the phenomenon. Is political instability in the Middle East a factor? Partially right, but any university student could answer that. Nor would it be right to answer that global oil consumption jumped after the Chinese and Indian economies picked up steam.
  Some say that the United States is raising oil prices intentionally. In other words, they say that Washington is manipulating oil prices, disturbing oil markets on purpose. Considering that President Bush is being supported by his nation’s major oil companies, and he himself is deeply involved in the oil industry, the claim is gaining considerable momentum.
• Commentary: Iraq surge has failed in its main purpose
  By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Here we are in the final throes of the Bush administration and someone has foolishly let Darth Cheney off his leash again. He immediately set off on a celebratory visit to Baghdad to praise the "huge accomplishment" of increased security wrought by the now-ending surge in the number of American troops. A large "BOOM" or two marked his pronouncements and another 40 Iraqi civilians died at the hands of a suicide bomber. The vice president swiftly got down to repeating one of the old lies he loves so well, telling us how Iraq and the late dictator Saddam Hussein were connected to the events of 9/11.
• British Memoirist Is Denied U.S. Entry
  By MOTOKO RICH Published: March 20, 2008 Sebastian Horsley, a British author who has written an eyebrow-raising memoir detailing a life of rampant drug use and voluminous encounters with prostitutes, was turned back at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday as he tried to enter the United States for a book party and New York news media tour. Mr. Horsley, whose memoir, "Dandy in the Underworld," was published last week in paperback by Harper Perennial, a unit of HarperCollins, said he was detained by United States customs authorities for eight hours and questioned about his former drug addiction, use of prostitutes and activity as a male escort. [Human rights]
• Global Strategy or Grand Illusion?
  By MICHIKO KAKUTANI Published: March 18, 2008 Correction Appended American troops bogged down in Iraq, a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, an overstretched military and National Guard, simmering tensions with Iran and North Korea, and growing hostility toward the United States around the world: these are just some of the consequences of Bush administration foreign policy over the last seven years. To the Slate columnist Fred Kaplan, these woes all stem from two grand misconceptions held by the White House and its top advisers: that the world fundamentally changed after 9/11, when in fact "the way the world works — the nature of power, warfare and politics among nations — remained essentially the same"; and that in a post-cold-war era, the United States "had the power to set the terms of the new world order" and could therefore act unilaterally, without entangling alliances and without compromising "with competing concepts or interests." [Imperialism]
• Mideast Commander Retires After Rankling Bosses
  By THOM SHANKER Published: March 12, 2008 WASHINGTON — Adm. William J. Fallon, the commander of American forces in the Middle East whose outspoken public statements on Iran and other issues had seemed to put him at odds with the Bush administration, is retiring early, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. Admiral Fallon had rankled senior officials of the Bush administration in recent months with comments that emphasized diplomacy over conflict in dealing with Iran, that endorsed further troop withdrawals from Iraq beyond those already under way and that suggested the United States had taken its eye off the military mission in Afghanistan.
• Foes of Sex Trade Are Stung by the Fall of an Ally
  By NINA BERNSTEIN Published: March 12, 2008 As New York’s attorney general, Eliot Spitzer had broken up prostitution rings before, but this 2004 case took on a special urgency for him. Prosecuting an international sex tourism business based in Queens, he listened to the entreaties of women’s advocates long frustrated by state laws that fell short of dealing with a sex trade expanding rapidly across borders. And with his typical zeal, he embraced their push for new legislation, including a novel idea at its heart: Go after the men who seek out prostitutes. It was a question of supply and demand, they all agreed. And one effective way to suppress the demand was to raise the penalties for patronizing a prostitute. In his first months as governor last year, Mr. Spitzer signed the bill into law. Now the human rights groups, which credit him with what they call the toughest and most comprehensive anti-sex-trade law in the nation, are in shock. Mr. Spitzer stands accused of being one of the very men his law was designed to catch and punish.
• Iran to Sign Final Gas Sales Agreement With Pakistan
  By Dinakar Sethuraman March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Iran, the world's No. 2 holder of oil and gas reserves, will sign a final agreement to export gas via pipeline to Pakistan in April, an official from the National Iranian Gas Co. said. Iran has completed half of the pipeline, which will have a capacity to carry 110 million cubic meters of gas a day to Pakistan, Vahid Zeydifard, a senior pipelines expert at National Iranian Gas, said in an interview at the Gastech conference in Bangkok today. Iran plans to start exporting gas to Pakistan from 2011. The $7.4 billion project, known as the ``Peace Pipeline,'' will carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and India to meet the growing energy demand of the two countries. The U.S., seeking to isolate Iran because of its pursuit of a nuclear program, wants India and Pakistan to pull out of the project.
• U.S. leads in preparing for war in space
  By Steven Lee Myers Published: March 9, 2008
  WASHINGTON: It does not take much imagination to realize how badly war in space could unfold. An enemy - say, China in a confrontation over Taiwan, or Iran staring down America over the Iranian nuclear program - could knock out the U.S. satellite system in a barrage of antisatellite weapons, instantly paralyzing American troops, planes and ships around the world. [Inversion]
• Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008 WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network. The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime. The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report. He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday. President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.  [Disinformation]  
• U.S. may add Venezuela to list of terrorist states
  By Pablo Bachelet | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Monday, March 10, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has launched a preliminary legal inquiry that could land Venezuela on the U.S. list of nations that support terrorism, following reports of close Venezuelan links with Colombian rebels, a senior government official has confirmed. The investigation is the first step in a process that could see Venezuela join North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Syria and Iran as countries designated by the State Department as supporters of terrorism. U.S. laws give some leeway on what economic activity is subject to such sanctions, but experts say adding Venezuela to the list would force U.S. and even foreign firms to sever or curtail links with one of the world's largest oil producers.
• In Havana, A Page From McCain's Past
  Restaurateur Displays Story Of Interview With POW Cuban psychologist-turned-restaurateur Fernando Barral interviewed POW John McCain while in North Vietnam to "find out how the enemy thinks." (By Manuel Roig-franzia -- The Washington Post) Buy Photo On Jan. 24, 1970, Cuba's Granma newspaper printed an article about POW John McCain. Above, Barral's notes from his interview nearly 40 years ago with John McCain, shown here in an undated photo during his 51/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam. (Associated Press) By Manuel Roig-Franzia Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, March 11, 2008; Page C01 HAVANA -- At first glance, the trophy wall in the Cactus on 33rd restaurant seems to follow a standard local formula. Framed photo of heroically posed rebel. Check. Rusty rifle. Check. Signed postcard from Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Check. But there, among the routine, lies a surprise: a copy of a faded, 38-year-old article from Granma, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper. On the page is a photo of Fernando Barral, a Cuban psychologist turned restaurateur, sitting at a well-appointed coffee table in Hanoi. He is interviewing a square-jawed, sandy-haired U.S. prisoner of war. A prisoner of war named John McCain.   That a nearly four-decade-old photo of a U.S. POW would become a restaurant prop in this seaside capital stands as testament to Havana's time-warp vibe and its enduring anti-U.S. sentiments. More than just a place where vintage American cars rumble and spit smoke, Havana can feel like a city that refuses to let go of the Cold War, where spies and conspiracy theories and intrigue are as much a part of daily life as rum, cigars and the rhythms of son music.   [Double standards] [Bizarre] [Sanctions]
• Senate panel critiques prewar claims by White House
  'Nobody is going to be happy' with the long-delayed report's mixed verdict on whether the Bush administration misused intelligence to argue for war with Iraq, an official says. By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 10:59 PM PDT, March 9, 2008 WASHINGTON -- After an acrimonious investigation that spanned four years, the Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to release a detailed critique of the Bush administration's claims in the buildup to war with Iraq, congressional officials said. The long-delayed document catalogs dozens of prewar assertions by President Bush and other administration officials that proved to be wildly inaccurate about Iraq's alleged stockpiles of banned weapons and pursuit of nuclear arms. But officials say the report reaches a mixed verdict on the key question of whether the White House misused intelligence to make the case for war. The document criticizes White House officials for making assertions that failed to reflect disagreements or uncertainties in the underlying intelligence on Iraq, officials said. But the report acknowledges that many claims were consistent with intelligence assessments in circulation at the time. [Disinformation]
• Population Shift Sends Universities Scrambling
  Applicant Pool Forecast To Shrink and Diversify By Valerie Strauss Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 10, 2008; Page A01 Colleges and universities are anxiously taking steps to address a projected drop in the number of high school graduates in much of the nation starting next year and a dramatic change in the racial and ethnic makeup of the student population, a phenomenon expected to transform the country's higher education landscape, educators and analysts said. After years of being overwhelmed with applicants, higher education institutions will over the next decade recruit from a pool of public high school graduates that will experience: - A projected national decline of roughly 10 percent or more in non-Hispanic white students, the population that traditionally is most likely to attend four-year colleges. - A double-digit rise in the proportion of minority students -- especially Hispanics -- who traditionally are less likely to attend college and to obtain loans to fund education. Despite those obstacles, minority enrollment at undergraduate schools is expected to rise steadily, from 30 percent in 2004 to about 37 percent in 2015, some analysts project. "The majority will become the minority," [Demographics] [IM]
• The Water Cure. An American Debate on torture and counterinsurgency in the Philippines—a century ago
  Paul Kramer
  Just over one hundred years ago, in 1902, Americans participated in a brief, intense and mostly forgotten debate on the practice of torture in a context of imperial warfare and counter-insurgency. The setting was the U. S. invasion of the Philippines, a war of conquest waged against the forces of the Philippine Republic begun in 1899. Within a year, it had developed into a guerrilla conflict, one that aroused considerable anti-war opposition in the United States. The controversy was sparked when letters from ordinary American soldiers in the Islands surfaced in hometown newspapers in the United States containing sometimes graphic accounts of torture, and activists within the anti-imperialist movement pressed for public exposure, investigation and accountability. At the center of the storm was what American soldiers called the “water cure,” a form of torture which involved the drowning of prisoners, often but not always for purposes of interrogation. [Human rights] [Imperialism]
• The Water Cure Debating torture and counterinsurgency—a century ago.
  by Paul Kramer
  February 25, 2008 A picture of a “water detail,” reportedly taken in May, 1901, in Sual, the Philippines. “It is a terrible torture,” one soldier wrote. Keywords Torture; Water Cure; Philippines; Philippine-American War; Interrogations; Riley, Charles S.; Glenn, Edwin Many Americans were puzzled by the news, in 1902, that United States soldiers were torturing Filipinos with water. The United States, throughout its emergence as a world power, had spoken the language of liberation, rescue, and freedom. This was the language that, when coupled with expanding military and commercial ambitions, had helped launch two very different wars. [Human rights] [Imperialism]
• Globalisation and nationalism: the new deal
  Tom Nairn
  The map of world statehood is creatively fissuring, as globalisation accentuates difference and breeds self-confident ambition among its underlings and marginals. The process, says Tom Nairn's extraordinary Edinburgh Lecture, heralds the retreat of the "body-builders' club" of would-be great nations and the "emergence of new, smaller communities of will and purpose - the nations of a new and deeply different age" 7 - 03 - 2008 I know, far too much has been said and written already about "globalisation", mondialisation, Globalisierung, and also about their opposite numbers, anti-globalisation, "glocalism" and so on. No one should propose adding to this untidy heap, without doubts and reservations (for a thoughtful mapping of the untidiness, see Perry Anderson, "Jottings on the Conjuncture", New Left Review 48, November-December 2007). Yet I would like to try my hand again [Globalisation]
• Jottings On The Conjuncture
  Perry Anderson
  Editorial The contemporary period—datable at one level from the economic and political shifts in the West at the turn of the eighties; at another from the collapse of the Soviet bloc a decade later—continues to see deep structural changes in the world economy and in international affairs. Just what these have been, and what their outcomes are likely to be, remains in dispute. Attempts to read them through the prism of current events are inherently fallible. A more conjunctural tack, confining itself to the political scene since 2000, involves fewer hazards; even so, simplifications and short-cuts are scarcely to be avoided. Certainly, the notations below do not escape them. Jottings more than theses, they stand to be altered or crossed out.
• Peace broker, bank adviser and lecturer, now Blair plans to teach religion at Yale·
  Ex-PM to deliver course in faith and globalisation · Aides express concern at ever-increasing workload Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Patrick Wintour The Guardian, Saturday March 8 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday March 08 2008 on p3 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 01:31 on March 08 2008. Tony Blair. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Not content with trying to bring peace to the Middle East - as well as advising an insurance company on the risks of climate change, a bank on crisis management and Rwanda on good governance - Tony Blair is to add another job to his portfolio: teaching God and politics at one of America's most prestigious universities. Yale, the Ivy League alma mater of his good friend George Bush, confirmed yesterday that the former prime minister is to join the schools of management and divinity at the campus in New Haven, Connecticut, in the autumn. He will teach a course on faith and globalisation, looking at religion in the modern world.
• No one wants to know
  Brian De Palma, Nick Broomfield and Paul Haggis have been called traitors and villains, their films branded 'Bin Laden cinema'. They are desperate to tell the truth about what is going on in Iraq. But there seems little appetite for war films right now Simon Hattenstone Saturday March 8, 2008 The Guardian   Delete where unnecessary ... Redacted tells the story of the Iraq war that Brian De Palma believes has not been told   It's 2006, and Brian De Palma can't believe his luck. Dotcom billionaire and aspiring film producer Mark Cuban offers him $5m to make a movie. About anything. The only proviso is that it has to be shot in hi-definition. Of course, De Palma jumps at the chance. He tells Cuban he'd like to make a film about the war in Iraq, Cuban hands over the $5m, deal done, everybody is happy.
    Fast-forward two years: Redacted has won the prestigious Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, websites such as BoycottRedacted.com are encouraging people not to see it and De Palma has been labelled a traitor. Oh, and De Palma and Cuban have fallen out, the film-maker accusing his producer of censorship. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. After all, De Palma has spent much of the past 40 years inflaming public opinion. He has always loved to play Contrary Mary, and seems to take pleasure in offending. He has been called a misogynist (feminists were infuriated by 1980's Dressed To Kill and its conflation of stilettos, sluts and slashing) and a plagiarist (for borrowing from, or paying homage to, heroes such as Hitchcock). He has even been called a traitor before - his 1989 film Casualties Of War also showed soldiers raping and murdering, back in Vietnam. But this time it's different. In a less liberal America, his fellow countrymen seem to have had enough of him. Scan the internet and lap up the bile. One blogger writes: "This guy should be held accountable for each American death after the release of this filth. He is a treasonist, and should be stripped of his citizenship, and expelled from this country as penniless as he came into it in birth." Fox anchor Bill O'Reilly called De Palma "a true villain in our country" and wished that "FDR was president so De Palma could be imprisoned for treason... Even if you disagree with the Iraq war, even if you dislike President Bush, no loyal American should support an enterprise that incites hatred against America." Meanwhile, US critic Michael Medved focused his criticism on the film. "It could be the worst movie I've ever seen," he said [Media]
• Sharp Drop in Jobs Adds to Grim Picture of U.S. Economy
  By EDMUND L. ANDREWS Published: March 8, 2008 WASHINGTON — The worst fears of consumers, investors and Washington officials were confirmed on Friday, as deepening paralysis on Wall Street collided with stark new evidence of falling employment and a likely recession. In a report that was far worse than most analysts had expected, the Labor Department estimated that the nation lost 63,000 jobs in February. It was the second consecutive monthly decline, and the third straight drop for private-sector jobs. [Offshoring]
• Debate on Economy Grows More Urgent
  Job-Loss Report Is Worst in 5 Years By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 8, 2008; Page A01 A surprisingly bleak employment report sent tremors through Washington and roiled the presidential campaign yesterday, infusing new urgency into the debate over how to reverse an accelerating economic slide and fueling a political contest over who to blame for it. [Offshoring]  
• The Cost Of Retreat In Iraq
  By Lee Kuan Yew
  Saturday, March 8, 2008; Page A15 SINGAPORE -- On Valentine's Day 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Saudi King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud on the USS Quincy at Egypt's Great Bitter Lake along the Suez Canal. Roosevelt was on his way home from Yalta, where he, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill had settled the contours of the post-World War II world. The compact that Roosevelt and the king reached on the USS Quincy -- American friendship and support for secure access to oil -- was no less significant. It has been the foundation of stability in the Persian Gulf, a troubled but vital region, in the 63 years since. The Quincy compact has survived three full Arab-Israeli wars and continuing low-intensity conflicts between Arabs and Israelis. Saudi Arabia has played a responsible and moderating role in OPEC and has contributed to stability in world oil prices and to global prosperity. There is no viable alternative to fossil fuels in the immediate future. Thus the security and stability of the Gulf and its oil supplies are vital for the United States. America has been fighting an insurgency in Iraq for five years. Taking out Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Mistakes were subsequently made, though, and the price has been high.
• Obama's foreign policy likely to be pragmatic, inclusive
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Friday, March 7, 2008
  WASHINGTON — If he's elected president, Barack Obama promises to bring a new tone and more inclusive approach to American foreign policy, reaching out to adversaries and giving greater weight to the views of U.S. allies. Obama, who's running neck and neck with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, says that in his first 100 days in office, he'd travel to a major Islamic forum to give a speech redefining the struggle against terrorism, making it clear that it isn't a crusade against Islam. Obama also has said he's willing to hold talks — what he calls "tough-minded diplomacy" — with leaders of countries such as Iran and Cuba, with which the Bush administration has refused to negotiate.    
  On many other issues, he promises few drastic departures. He says he strongly supports Israel as part of his Middle East strategy, would place a premium on halting the spread of nuclear weapons and sees China as neither enemy nor friend. "The similarities (in policies) are more striking than the differences," Glennon said.
• Amis and Islam
  By RACHEL DONADIO Published: March 9, 2008 "I’m a passionate multiracialist and a very poor multiculturalist," Martin Amis said a few weeks ago. He was on the phone from London, praising his hometown’s ethnic variety — "It’s exhilarating and moving to live in a city with so many races and so many colors" — and denouncing its fissures, particularly over radical Islam. "I don’t think that we can accommodate cultures and ideologies that make life very difficult for half the human race: women." Amis was explaining his stance in a gloves-off row that’s been raging in the British press since last fall, when the literary theorist Terry Eagleton likened some of Amis’s statements on Muslims to "the ramblings of a British National Party thug."
  On the one hand, it’s a classic English literary donnybrook, full of punchy insults like Eagleton’s claim that Amis was taking after his curmudgeonly father, Kingsley Amis, whom he characterized as a "racist, anti-Semitic boor, a drink-sodden, self-hating reviler of women, gays and liberals." But the dust-up also touches on the fault lines of multiethnic Britain. In the press, Amis has been accused of lazy thinking and Muslim-bashing. The left-leaning Guardian ran a prominent feature, "Martin Amis and the New Racism," with an unflattering illustration. Things have only heated up since January, with the British publication of "The Second Plane," Amis’s new book of essays, subtitled "September 11: Terror and Boredom." (The book, which received fairly tepid reviews in England, will appear in the United States in April.) It all began in August 2006, when Amis granted a wide-ranging interview to Ginny Dougary of The Times of London, published online. Over chardonnay at the Long Island estate of his wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca, and less than a month after British authorities had thwarted an alleged terrorist plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners, Amis wondered out loud: "What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There’s a definite urge — don’t you have it? — to say, ‘The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.’ What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation — further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan. ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children."
• Ex-Defense Official Assails Colleagues Over Run-Up to War
  By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, March 9, 2008; Page A01 In the first insider account of Pentagon decision-making on Iraq, one of the key architects of the war blasts former secretary of state Colin Powell, the CIA, retired Gen. Tommy R. Franks and former Iraq occupation chief L. Paul Bremer for mishandling the run-up to the invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country. Douglas J. Feith, in a massive score-settling work, portrays an intelligence community and a State Department that repeatedly undermined plans he developed as undersecretary of defense for policy and conspired to undercut President Bush's policies. Among the disclosures made by Feith in "War and Decision," scheduled for release next month by HarperCollins, is Bush's declaration, at a Dec. 18, 2002, National Security Council meeting, that "war is inevitable." The statement came weeks before U.N. weapons inspectors reported their initial findings on Iraq and months before Bush delivered an ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Feith, who says he took notes at the meeting, registered it as a "momentous comment." Although he acknowledges "serious errors" in intelligence, policy and operational plans surrounding the invasion, Feith blames them on others outside the Pentagon and notes that "even the best planning" cannot avoid all problems in wartime. While he says the decision to invade was correct, he judges that the task of creating a viable and stable Iraqi government was poorly executed and remains "grimly incomplete."
• Sovereign Wealth Funds: power vs principle
  Fred Halliday
  The rise of "sovereign wealth funds" signals the end of the neo-liberal model and challenges western states and financial institutions to develop a coherent and long-term response, says Fred Halliday. 5 - 03 - 2008 The world's financial press has a new obsession to succeed the "sub-prime mortgage" craze of autumn 2007: "sovereign wealth funds", those state-backed investment bodies whose accumulating assets (often fuelled by the high energy prices of the 2000s) are roaming the globe in search of businesses to invest in, partner - and perhaps devour. The enormous capital assets of these funds, and their potential influence on western markets and business, make the focus (and to a degree the fear) understandable; but some at least of the reporting and discussion about these new behemoths in the western media has a bias towards misunderstanding. The world's sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are believed already to command assets worth around $3 trillion ($3,000,000,000,000; this figure is higher than (for example) the GDP of the United Kingdom. But the SWF phenomenon represents a major change in the world's financial and investment markets in a way that goes beyond even considerations of this epic (and often suddenly acquired) scale of riches. For its significance lies also in the intellectual and policy context of its emergence: namely, that after three decades of policy, propaganda, and hype about "freeing up markets", "reducing the role of the state", and "promoting the private sector", the SWFs embody a massive and unstoppable shift of influence back to what are in effect state-owned entities. Take that, neo-liberalism! The cunning of history has done it again.
• Clinton scores crucial wins in Texas and Ohio
  By Andrew Ward in New York Published: March 4 2008 13:15 | Last updated: March 5 2008 05:52 Hillary Clinton put her presidential campaign back on Tuesday, with Democratic primary victories in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, breaking Barack Obama’s month-long winning streak. John McCain officially sealed the Republican presidential nomination with commanding victories in all four states that voted on Tuesday, forcing Mike Huckabee, his last serious challenger, to acknowledge that the race was over.  
  Economic issues dominated debate in Ohio, with Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton vying to strike the most protectionist tone amid mounting concern about decline in US manufacturing jobs.
  Exit polls showed that eight in 10 Ohio Democrats said global trade had cost more jobs than it had created in the state, compared with six in 10 in Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island. Democrats named the economy the most important electoral issue in all four states, with two thirds of voters saying they were worried about their family’s financial situation. [Offshoring]
• As Israelis Pull Out of Gaza, Hamas Celebrates Its Rocketry
  By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER Published: March 4, 2008 GAZA — As Israel withdrew its forces from the northern Gaza Strip on Monday after a two-day assault on Hamas militants, and as Palestinians emerged from their houses to inspect the damage, Hamas leaders seemed to be following the playbook of their Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, in its 2006 war with Israel.
  Rockets reached Ashkelon, about 10 miles from the strip. Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, said that like Hezbollah, Hamas had "gone from the stone to the rocket." "What we learned from Hezbollah," he said, "is that resistance is a choice that can work."
• Laptop of mass destruction
  by Russ Wellen (source: Scholars & Rogues) Sunday, March 2, 2008
  The day after the International Atomic Energy Agency issued its latest report card on Iran’s nuclear program, the New York Times headlined its story: “Nuclear Agency Says Iran Has Used New Technology.” The IAEA, David Sanger explained, had presented Iran with evidence that it was conducting experiments in manufacturing nuclear weapons. At the end of second paragraph, he mentions that the report also stated that “Iranian officials had finally begun to answer a number of longstanding questions about its nuclear activities.” But the IAEA, its report itself concludes, “has been able to continue to verify” that Iran isn’t diverting nuclear material from nuclear energy to weapons research. Though it can’t give Iran a clean bill of nuclear heath “before reaching some clarity about the nature of the alleged studies.” In other words, the Times portrayed the glass half-empty, while the IAEA, as reported by Reuters, presented it as half — or even three-quarters — full. In a piece titled “Iran Says Work Plan Closed, U.S. Intelligence Fake,” Karin Strohecker wrote that “the IAEA said Iran had responded to questions and clarified issues raised in the context of the work plan struck in August, with the exception of alleged studies.” But what’s with the “alleged studies” to which both the Times and Reuters refer? In 2005, the Washington Post reported, a laptop computer was “allegedly stolen from an Iranian whom German intelligence tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit as an informant. It was whisked out of the country by another Iranian.”
• New Asian Drivers, Japan, Korea and the Lessons of History
  R. Taggart Murphy
  As a long-time observer of the Japanese economy, I found myself growing irritated as I read Raphael Kaplinsky’s and Dirk Messner’s Introduction to “The Impact of Asian Drivers on the Developing World.” Of course China and India have already had a huge impact on the global economy and that impact shows every sign of getting yet larger. Two new economic behemoths pushing their way into the club of great powers are naturally going to upset many apple carts. No reasonable person could disagree with the proposition that the “questions” posed by the rise of “Asian Drivers,” to use the authors’ label for India and China, “need to be addressed in a systematic framework” and the list of such questions the authors volunteer on page 202 – what are the consequences; who wins and loses; what are the implications for the environment, for institutions of global governance, for other developing country plans and so forth – is a worthy enough start. But really coming to grips with these questions means getting the history and context right, and from the title on I began to have doubts. Asian Drivers? The last time I checked, the Japanese economy was still larger than that of both India and China combined.
  [FDI] [Development]
• The Most wanted List. International Terrorism
  Noam Chomsky
  How is terrorism to be defined in the contemporary world? Who are the terrorists? What distinguishes state terrorism from other forms of terrorism? Noam Chomsky offers a global perspective on these issues with particular reference to the United States, Israel and the Middle East. Japan Focus [Terrorism] [Double standards]
• Ahmadi-Nejad in Iraq for historic trip
  By Roula Khalaf and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran and Steve Negus in Irbil
  Published: March 2 2008 14:39 | Last updated: March 2 2008 14:39 Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad on Sunday became the first regional head of state to visit Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, underlining Tehran’s close relations with its former enemy and staging a symbolic show of defiance of the US. The Iranian president went from the airport to a meeting with Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president, where Mr Ahmadi-Nejad declared his support for a "united Iraq, a sovereign Iraq and an advanced Iraq". But the visit, which both Iraqi and Iranian officials said was aimed at furthering economic ties, was overshadowed by US, Arab and Iraqi Sunni Arab fears that the Islamic republic is attempting to increase its influence over the country’s Shia-led government. [Unintended consequences]
• Chavez sends 10 battalions to Colombian border after killing of Farc commander·
  Incursion into Ecuador brings dramatic response · Venezuela's reaction plunges region into crisis Rory Carroll in Caracas and Sibylla Brodzinsky in Bogotá The Guardian, Monday March 3 2008 The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, yesterday raised the spectre of war in South America when he sent troops to his country's border with Colombia and severed diplomatic ties to protest at Colombia's killing of a guerrilla leader. Chavez dramatically ordered 10 battalions to the frontier and the closing of Venezuela's embassy in Bogotá, with all staff to be withdrawn, plunging the region into a sudden crisis. The self-styled socialist revolutionary branded Colombia a terrorist state and called its president, Álvaro Uribe, a criminal and a Washington puppet. The neighbouring country needed to be "liberated" from US domination, Chavez said on his weekly TV show, Aló Presidente: "Mr defence minister, move me 10 battalions to the frontier with Colombia immediately, tank battalions. The air force should mobilise. We do not want war." Chavez spoke in response to a Colombian incursion into Ecuador on Saturday in which Raul Reyes, a senior commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, was killed. [Media] [Inversion]  
• This war on terrorism is bogus
  The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination Michael Meacher
  The Guardian, Saturday September 6 2003 This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday September 06 2003 . It was last updated at 12:15 on December 04 2003. Massive attention has now been given - and rightly so - to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier. We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
• The Arms Race Myth, Again
  By Richard N. Perle Monday, March 3, 2008; Page A17 With a stridency reminiscent of the Cold War, outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin charged last month that with U.S. plans for a limited defense against ballistic missiles, "a new arms race has been unleashed in the world." He vowed to field new weapons, which have been under development for years, "in response." The same day, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he anticipated "hundreds of thousands of missile interceptors all over the world . . . in the foreseeable future." [Missile defence]
• Bush legacy: Farewell to the Monroe Doctrine?
  By Pablo Bachelet | McClatchy Newspaper Posted on Saturday, March 1, 2008 WASHINGTON - El Salvador's President Tony Saca, a close U.S. ally, can scarcely contain his frustration. He calls U.S. politicians ''shortsighted'' for failing to reform U.S. immigration laws. He says Latin American populism is ''a pendulum swing toward disaster'' that deserves more U.S. attention. ''The United States, in my judgment, should invest enormous resources in Latin America, along the lines of a Marshall Plan,'' he said in a recent interview. "Generally speaking, when you want to have a neighborhood that gives you peace of mind, you have to invest in that neighborhood.'' But Saca is unlikely to be satisfied. President Bush has increased aid to Latin America by record amounts and visited Latin America more than any of his predecessors, but his legacy may be the biggest loss of U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere in recent memory. He remains unpopular and unable to pass initiatives that Latin Americans want, such as immigration reform and free-trade pacts. Trade between South America and China is booming. Governments from Canada to Iran are cutting deals in the region, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made challenging U.S. interests his foreign-policy mission, through everything from sweet oil deals to a TV news channel that rivals CNN
• Ahmadinejad Heads to Iraq as Chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs Visits
  By ALISSA J. RUBIN Published: March 2, 2008 BAGHDAD - Army and police checkpoints dotted the Iraqi capital on Saturday in preparation for a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, which will coincide with a visit by the chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff.
  Adm. Mike Mullen arrived in Baghdad on Saturday on an unannounced trip to meet with commanders and Iraqi officials before a series of briefings he is to give President Bush in April about the future of the war effort. There were no plans for Admiral Mullen and Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is to arrive on Sunday, to cross paths, and the timing of their visits appeared to be coincidental. The visits come as violence, which in December reached its lowest level in more than a year, has begun to rise   [Unintended consequences]  
• In Search for Peace, a Shrinking White House Role
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 2, 2008; Page A16 When Palestinians broke through the barrier dividing the Gaza Strip and Egypt in January and streamed across the border by the tens of thousands, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak faced a moment of crisis. His phone soon rang, but the world leader offering help on the other end was not President Bush -- it was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mubarak took the call, resulting in the first such contact between leaders of the two nations since relations were severed nearly three decades ago.
  The conversation signaled a growing rapprochement between Egypt, which receives nearly $2 billion in annual aid from Washington, and Iran, a country that the Bush administration has tried to isolate as a possible threat to U.S. interests in the region. [Decline]
• Some Things Just Won't Change
  By Michael Abramowitz Sunday, March 2, 2008; Page B03 As you might have heard, the big theme of the 2008 election thus far is change. But when it comes to foreign policy, the Democratic Party's eager, galvanized base may wind up getting a whole lot less change than they'd hoped for if their party takes the White House. Sweeping oratory aside, a President Barack Obama or a President Hillary Rodham Clinton -- let alone a President John McCain -- might chart a course in the world that's surprisingly similar to that of George W. Bush in his second term. Consider a panel of (mostly Democratic) foreign policy thinkers that was held last summer at the centrist Center for a New American Security. Peter D. Feaver, who was then just leaving a post on Bush's National Security Council staff, asked several leading Democrats if they could identify any policies laid out by President Bush that the next administration would continue "more or less the same way" -- and he got plenty of takers. Princeton University political scientist Anne-Marie Slaughter mentioned Bush's support of democracy around the world and his doubling of foreign aid. Kurt Campbell, a Pentagon official in the Clinton administration, cited the Bush team's efforts to protect the U.S. homeland from terrorist attacks and the strengthening of alliances with countries such as Japan and India. James B. Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser during President Bill Clinton's second term, said he was impressed with Bush's efforts to work with Democrats on trade.
• Multinationals: Are They Good for America?
  They're productive, innovative, and loaded with cash. But that doesn't mean they'll bail out the U.S. economy
  by Michael Mandel
  
  But will the globe-spanning giants come to the rescue of the U.S. economy? Recent history is not encouraging. Figures collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis suggest the multinational sector has in some ways been a drag on the U.S. economy since 2000. From 2000 to 2005, the last year for which full data are available, U.S. multinationals cut more than 2 million jobs at home, even as employment in the rest of the private sector grew—and there's no sign the trend has significantly reversed. The U.S. operations of foreign multinationals also shrank over the five-year stretch, dropping 500,000 jobs as foreign investors cut costs and sold off U.S. companies. Toyota, perhaps the most successful foreign company in the U.S., added all of 9,000 jobs in the states between 2000 and 2007. In an age of seemingly rampant globalization, the U.S. economy hasn't become noticeably more global in one key sense: Exports, despite being up in the past few years, equaled 11.8% of gross domestic product in 2007, barely above where they were in 1997. Meanwhile, sales by foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based multinationals have skyrocketed (chart). The good news: The combination of the falling dollar and rising costs overseas is making it more appealing for high-productivity multinationals to shift some production and employment back to the U.S
  [Offshoring]
• U.S. Embrace of Musharraf Irks Pakistanis
  By DAVID ROHDE Published: February 29, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Bush administration’s continued backing of President Pervez Musharraf, despite the overwhelming rejection of his party by voters this month, is fueling a new level of frustration in Pakistan with the United States.
  That support has rankled the public, politicians and journalists here, inciting deep anger at what is perceived as American meddling and the refusal of Washington to embrace the new, democratically elected government. John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, said Thursday during a Senate panel hearing that the United States would maintain its close ties to Mr. Musharraf. [Democracy] [Double standards]
• New High In U.S. Prison Numbers
  Growth Attributed To More Stringent Sentencing Laws
  By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 29, 2008; Page A01 More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more, according to a report released yesterday.
  With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States [Human rights]

• Brave New Economy
  By DAVID HALE February 22, 2008; Page A14
  There is a delicious irony in the fact that U.S. banks have sought equity capital from the sovereign wealth funds of Asian and Middle Eastern countries to repair the balance-sheet damage inflicted by subprime mortgage securities. These same countries helped finance America's housing bubble and subprime debacle. Stung by the Asian financial crisis 10 years ago, central banks in developing countries began defensive actions to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves. Economies blessed with significant natural resources accumulated yet more dollars. The problem is their overflowing coffers contributed to a major misallocation of capital in recent years that is likely to continue
• Miliband's contradiction in terms
  The foreign secretary's narcissistic new mission to 'spread democracy' around the globe will make people even less free
  Brendan O'Neill
  Military interventionists, both of the "neocon" and "humanitarian" variety, never learn. Over the past 10 to 15 years, not a single one of their interventions has delivered democracy to a tyrant-hit hotspot, or liberated a people from bondage. Instead they have inflamed and intensified conflict and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. And yet, blinded by the narcissistic and deluded belief that they have the power to free people from tyranny, both left-leaning and rightwing interventionists continue to call for more "wars of liberation", for one more chance to prove that their bombs and bloodshed really can spread freedom around the globe. Today, David Miliband is giving a speech in Oxford in which he will apply a bit of spit and polish to the argument for British interventionism overseas. [Imperialism]
• New strategy to stem flow of terror recruits·
  Areas profiled for extremist risk · Action in state schools and prisons
  Vikram Dodd, crime correspondent The Guardian, Thursday February 28 2008 . It was last updated at 00:13 on February 28 2008. Senior police officers have drawn up a radical strategy to stop British Muslims turning to violence which will see every area of the country mapped for its potential to produce extremists and supporters for al-Qaida. The 40-page document, marked restricted, was approved by a top-level police counter-terrorism committee on Monday, and is expected to be formally adopted within weeks. The Association of Chief Police Officers hopes it will help to stop al-Qaida's ideas gaining hold in primary schools, colleges, the internet and prisons. Other initiatives in the strategy include: · guidance to parents on how to stop children searching for extremist websites · an anti-extremism agenda to be included in "all state-maintained educational establishments from primary schooling through to universities" by 2008/9 · intervening to stop convicted al-Qaida terrorists and supporters from spreading extremist ideology in prison. Acpo's plans have been prompted by a realisation that new recruits are being attracted to violent extremism despite scores of convictions, arrests and the disruption of plots. [Human rights]
• Nobel laureate estimates wars' cost at more than $3 trillion
  By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2008
  WASHINGTON — When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration predicted that the war would be self-financing and that rebuilding the nation would cost less than $2 billion. Coming up on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, a Nobel laureate now estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing America more than $3 trillion. That estimate from Noble Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz also serves as the title of his new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War," which hits store shelves Friday. The book, co-authored with Harvard University professor Linda Bilmes, builds on previous research that was published in January 2006. The two argued then and now that the cost to America of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is wildly underestimated. When other factors are added — such as interest on debt, future borrowing for war expenses, the cost of a continued military presence in Iraq and lifetime health-care and counseling for veterans — they think that the wars' costs range from $5 trillion to $7 trillion.
• William F. Buckley Jr., 82, Dies; Sesquipedalian Spark of Right
  By DOUGLAS MARTIN Published: February 28, 2008 William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died on Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82.    
• Serbia Withdrew Police, Intelligence Chief Says
    By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, February 28, 2008; Page A14 The Serbian government decided to pull back its police in Belgrade last Thursday so that demonstrators could attack the U.S. and British embassies, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told a Senate committee yesterday.  
  Discussing another troubled area, McConnell provided a downbeat report on Afghanistan, disclosing that an intelligence study had determined that the Kabul-based government of President Hamid Karzai controls about 31 percent of the country's population. He said the Taliban controls about 11 percent and that the rest is under local tribal control. McConnell said violence had gone up because U.S. and NATO forces have taken aggressive actions and that many Taliban leaders had been killed or captured. But those actions provoked an increase in the use of suicide bombers and roadside explosive devices. Overall, however, the growing insurgency in Afghanistan has "been sustained in the south. It's grown a bit in the east, and what we've seen are elements of it spread to the west and the north," McConnell said. The key to the increase has been the "de facto safe haven in Pakistan [that] gives them the ability to train and recruit, rest and recuperate, and then come back into Afghanistan."
  On North Korea, McConnell said intelligence analysts believe that Pyongyang has enough plutonium for "at least six nuclear weapons." But he added that analysts are less certain that North Korea has begun to produce highly enriched uranium, a probability now considered medium instead of high. [HEU]
• David Miliband: Iraq mistakes should not halt democracy
  By Bonnie Malkin and agencies Last Updated: 3:14am GMT 26/02/2008
  David Miliband has insisted that mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan must not discourage Britain's efforts to foster democracy around the world - by military means if necessary.
  Foreign Secretary's speech in full Your View: Does Britain have a moral duty to spread democracy? The Foreign Secretary said controversy surrounding the current conflicts should not overshadow the "moral impulse" to bring people freedom. Mr Miliband said the West was not indulging in "intellectual imperialism" The spread of democracy cannot be taken for granted and needs support "not just in words, but in deeds", Mr Miliband warned. "I understand the doubts about Iraq and Afghanistan, and the deep concerns at the mistakes made," he said. "But my plea is that we do not let divisions over those conflicts obscure our national interest, never mind our moral impulse, in supporting movements for democracy." [Imperialism] [Democracy]
• The democratic imperative
  David Miliband
  Speech in full By Bonnie Malkin and agencies Last Updated: 3:14am GMT 26/02/2008Page 1 of 3
  ‘The democratic imperative’ Aung San Suu Kyi lecture by Rt Hon David Miliband MP Foreign Secretary St Hugh’s college, Oxford 12 February 2008 [Imperialism] [Democracy] [Camouflage]
• Outsourcing in the New Economy
  The Issue The debate on outsourcing of US white-collar jobs in information technology (IT) to low-wage developing countries has picked up remarkable momentum over the last year. Globalization of IT hardware contributed to rapid productivity and job growth in the 1990s, and globalization of software and IT services likely will spur a second wave of US productivity and job growth. Nevertheless, the specter of losing white-collar IT jobs abroad looms large, and frequently cited projections indicate that millions of jobs could be lost to offshore workers. While some jobs will be done abroad, just as in the 1990s, higher-paid jobs demanding IT skills will grow very quickly in the United States. Public policy must be redirected to assure that US workers can both transition to, and upgrade their skills for, the jobs that globalization and technological change are creating.
• Survey: U.S. religious landscape in flux
  By Jennifer Garza - jgarza@sacbee.com Last Updated 12:36 pm PST Monday, February 25, 2008 Americans are changing their religious affiliations or dropping out of formal religious groups at an increasing rate, according to a landmark study on American religious identification released Monday. Nearly half of Americans have changed their affiliation since childhood or dropped out of a religious group, according to the survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. More religious options and lifestyle changes are fueling the trend, the study's authors say. The report shows that 44 percent of Americans say they have switched their religious affiliation. The number of people who say they don't believe in God is also on the rise, immigration is changing how Americans worship, and Protestant denominations now make up only a slight majority - 51 percent - a significant drop in the past two decades. More than 35,000 people were interviewed for the "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," considered one of the most comprehensive reports on religious affiliation in recent years.
• Obama and Global Trade
  Can He Deliver?
  By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS February 21, 2008 Unique among the contenders for the presidential nominations, Barack Obama has raised the issue of US job loss from US corporations moving operations abroad in order to lower their labor costs and, thereby, boost profits. As reported by the Financial Times, Obama proposed a lower tax rate for US companies that maintain or increase their US workforce relative to their overseas workforce. Economists, who have crawled out on a limb in defense of jobs offshoring, quickly denounced Obama's plan. [Offshoring]
• The Defense News version
  Paul Rogers
  A single week's issue of a leading military journal reveals a lot about the United States's strategic predicament and plans. 22 - 02 - 2008
  The Washington-based weekly Defense News is one of the most informative of the many military and defence journals on the market. As well as topical and detailed reports and analyses, it gives independent researchers useful insights into the thinking of the United States defence department. On occasion, a single issue of the magazine provides multiple indications of the Pentagon's outlook. The current issue - which, as ever, requires a subscription to access most of its material - is an unusually good example.
  One article in this current copy, however, presents an entirely different view (see William Matthews, "RAND: Build Society to Fight Insurgencies", Defense News, 18 February 2008). A study released by the RAND corporation on 11 February 2008 focuses on "Building functioning local governments, improving security and creating jobs..." as an alternative to the usual run of counterinsurgency operations. Whether an external state can even do such things in an acceptable manner when it is seen to be occupying a country is debatable, but the approach is at least an intellectual departure from the dominant one of the past few years. The study points to the extraordinary discontinuities of approach (for example, the US Agency for International Development [Usaid], which would in principle be at the forefront of such a constructive policy, has lost 80% of its staff since the late 1980s); but it also claims that what might be termed civil counterinsurgency could be done for around 10% of the cost of the military approach. [US military] [Softpower]
• Fidel remembered: a view of the Cuban revolution
  Richard Gott
  Fidel Castro announced his retirement on 19 February 2008. Both the fifty-year experience of the Cuba revolution and current trends in Latin America confirm the "maximo líder" as one of the great figures in modern world politics, says Richard Gott. 20 - 02 - 2008 The unusual circumstances that brought about the Cuban revolution of January 1959, with bearded guerrillas descending from the hills to seize power, and the dramatic arrival on the international stage of Fidel Castro, its eloquent and charismatic leader, had an extraordinary international impact from the first. Cuba's example was to spark off other revolutionary initiatives, large and small, in countries all over the world, and to affect the lives of millions of people. Perhaps for the first time since the end of the second world war in 1945, an event occurred of transcendent pleasure and excitement: the overthrow of a sanguinary military dictator and his replacement by an undisciplined bunch of youthful radicals with a revolutionary project. Castro and the revolution were soon indissoluble in the public mind, perceived as one and the same thing. In the United States, at the end of the Dwight Eisenhower era, Cuba's revolution brought hope of the rejuvenation of politics at home and abroad. The same hope was raised in Europe, where pre-war figures like Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, and Harold Macmillan were still in charge. Even in the Soviet Union, where ancient revolutionaries like Nikita Khrushchev and Anastas Mikoyan were sloughed down by post-Stalinist bureaucracy, a cheer went up from the Kremlin when they saw the rebirth in the Caribbean of their own youthful dreams.
• The U.S. Military Index
  March/April 2008 In an exclusive new index, FOREIGN POLICY and the Center for a New American Security surveyed more than 3,400 active and retired officers at the highest levels of command about the state of the U.S. military. They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight. Today, the U.S. military is engaged in a campaign that is more demanding and intense than anything it has witnessed in a generation. Ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now entering their fifth and seventh years respectively, have lasted longer than any U.S. military engagements of the past century, with the exception of Vietnam [US military]
• Slouching towards Petroeurostan
  By Pepe Escobar
  It was a discreet, almost hush-hush affair, but after almost three years of stalling and endless delays it finally happened. Now more than ever, it may also signal a geoeconomic earthquake, a potentially shattering blow to US dollar hegemony. The Iranian oil bourse - the first oil, gas and petrochemical exchange in the Islamic Republic, and the first within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) - was launched on Sunday by Iran’s Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari, flanked by Minister of Economy and Financial Affairs Davoud Danesh Ja’fari, the man who will head the exchange. Officially called the Iranian International Petroleum Exchange (IIPE), it is widely known in Iran and the Persian Gulf as the Kish bourse, named after Kish island, a free zone (declared by the shah) in an ideal laissez faire setting: lots of condos and duty-free malls, no Khomeini mega-portraits and hordes of young honeymooners shopping for made-in-Europe home appliances. Transactions at this early stage will be in Iran’s currency, the rial, according to Nozari, ending worldwide speculation that the bourse would start trading in euros. The Iranian ambassador to Russia, Gholam-Reza Ansari, has said that "in the future, we'll be able to use the ruble, Russia’s national currency, in our operations". He added that "Russia and Iran, two major producers of the world’s energy, should encourage oil and gas transactions in various non-dollar currencies, releasing the world from being a slave of the dollar." Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said last week that "the ruble will de facto become one of the regional reserve currencies".
  What Iran plans to do in the long run is quite daring: to confront head-on Anglo-American energy/corporate banking domination of the international oil trade. [Reserve]
• Globalistan: How the Globalized World Is Dissolving into Liquid War
  Pepe Escobar
  You are holding a warped travel book. This warped travel book remixes three main themes: globalization, energy wars and the Pentagon’s Long War, originally packaged as the “war on terror.” Call it a—what else—war travel book. Or a warped geopolitical travel book. You will be traveling mostly in the arc from Middle East to Central Asia, but also in China, Russia, Western Europe, Western Africa, South America. You’re going to revisit the asymmetrical wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. You’re going to crisscross the Islamic world. You’re going to follow a lot of pipelines. You’ll be acquainted with the Iran the next war will probably hit. You’ll see how national resistance wars have nothing to do with “terrorism.” You’ll be confronted over and over again with “strategic competitor” Asia—where the future of the 21st Century is being played out. You’re going to revisit how, where and who profits from economic globalization and especially war corporatism. You’ll see how more trade does not necessarily mean more peace. You’ll see how and where possible New Orders are emerging, and Old Orders disintegrating. And you will finish the pilgrimage back in the middle of a—predictable—global war of the privileged few against the excluded many.
• U.S. ties with Libya strained over new law
  By Sue Pleming Reuters Friday, February 22, 2008; 5:33 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States restored diplomatic ties with Libya almost two years ago, but U.S. legislation last month to compensate terrorism victims has soured relations and stalled business between the former foes. U.S. officials and companies seeking to trade with Libya, as well as Libya's ambassador to Washington, said ties were increasingly strained and Tripoli felt it was not being rewarded for giving up its weapons of mass destruction program in 2003. "This legislation has damaged a lot -- our new relations -- unfortunately. It is a great setback," Libya's ambassador to the United States, Ali Aujali, told Reuters. "Libya is not getting what we deserve," he added. Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam, who visited Washington last month, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking her to try to "correct" the latest legislation. Asked about the strains, Rice told reporters on Friday that she wanted to improve ties but conceded there were differences with the former pariah state and she was concerned about the families of victims of terrorism. "We are on a completely different footing with Libya. We want to press relations forward and to move them forward," she said, adding that the State Department was looking at the effect of the new legislation and what could be done. Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey attached the new legislation to an Iraq war funding bill, expanding existing laws to enable terrorism victims to collect damages from governments such as Libya by having their assets frozen. The assets freeze has jangled the nerves of U.S. firms wanting to invest in Libya after sanctions were dropped against Tripoli and Rice announced to much fanfare in May 2006 that diplomatic relations would be restored. [Renege]
• 'There is peace. We have a new airport. People are satisfied'
  The once war-torn country has been transformed, but change has come at a price
  Luke Harding in Grozny The Guardian, Friday February 22 2008 It was once the most destroyed city in Europe, until last year bearing a striking resemblance to Stalingrad. But, almost nine years after Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to recapture the separatist republic of Chechnya at any cost, its capital Grozny has been transformed. The bullet-ridden houses have disappeared. There is a new airport, with daily flights to Moscow. There is a rebuilt university, where students learn journalism and dentistry; a modern high school; a hospital. The Kremlin insists that the conflict in Chechnya, which claimed tens of thousands of lives, is definitively over. But it is also clear that the rapid reconstruction of war-ravaged Chechnya has come at a price. In return for peace Chechnya has been transformed into a totalitarian fiefdom with a flourishing personality cult that might make North Koreans blush. Grozny's streets are lined with ubiquitous portraits of one man - Chechnya's bearded 31-year-old president Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov's distinctive features can be seen at bus stops, along boulevards, and at the airport, where a giant poster shows him holding a bunch of pink flowers. Nightly local TV bulletins heap praise on the youthful pro-Moscow leader.
• Homepage Experts fear debris isn't the only fallout from satellite shoot-down
  By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Thursday, February 21, The single modified tactical Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) launches from the U.S. Navy AEGIS cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70). | View larger image WASHINGTON — A U.S. missile strike that appeared Thursday to have shattered a crippled spy satellite and vaporized its hazardous hydrazine fuel sent up cheers among Pentagon planners, who for three weeks had worked feverishly to turn an anti-missile system into one that could track and kill an object orbiting the Earth. But even as debris from the shattered satellite began raining down over the Pacific Ocean, there were worries that the U.S. achievement might spur other nations to advance their own anti-satellite programs and turn outer space into a potential battlefield. "I don't see how other nations don't see this as an anti-satellite test," said Theresa Hitchens, the director of the Washington D.C.-based Center for Defense Information, a centrist national security policy institute. "They'll see it as the weaponization of space." China, which last year came under harsh U.S. criticism for using a missile to destroy an aged weather satellite hundreds of miles in space, was the first to react. [Double standards]
• More Patents From China, South Korea: UN
  The Associated Press Thursday, February 21, 2008; 6:16 PM GENEVA -- China and South Korea are climbing up the ranks of the world's leading inventors, according to figures released by the U.N. patent agency Thursday. Of the 156,000 international patents filed through the World Intellectual Property Organization last year, some 7,000 originated in South Korea and almost 5,500 came from China. The numbers put the two countries far behind the United States, which maintained its top position for international patents with about 52,000 registrations. But South Korea overtook France to come fourth behind Germany (27,731) and Japan (18,134) on the patent ladder. China (5,456) saw its filings jump by almost 40 percent in one year and came seventh _ ahead of the Netherlands (4,186) and within striking distance of Britain (5,553), according to WIPO [IPR]
• Splitting Hairs on Foreign Policy
  February 20, 2008 Author: Toni Johnson The Democratic presidential nominating contest between Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) couldn’t be closer. Neither, at first glimpse, could their foreign policy positions. Take Iraq. Although Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq war and Obama opposed it from the outset (prior to joining the Senate), both have pledged to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops within the first few months of their administrations. Clinton would leave residual forces inside the country to protect U.S. interests and root out terrorists (Foreign Affairs) and so would Obama.
• Effort to Shoot Down Satellite Could Inform Military Strategy
  By Marc Kaufman and Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, February 20, 2008; Page A03 The Bush administration's attempt to shoot down an out-of-control spy satellite as early as this evening will help the military advance its anti-missile and anti-satellite planning and technology, according to space weapons experts and analysts. Both fields are of high interest to the military and of high concern for many other nations. [Double standards]
• Exclusive: U.S. urges Pakistanis to keep Musharraf, despite election defeat
  By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan _The Bush administration is pressing the opposition leaders who defeated Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to allow the former general to retain his position, a move that Western diplomats and U.S. officials say could trigger the very turmoil the United States seeks to avoid. U.S. officials, from President Bush on down, said this week that they think Musharraf, a longtime U.S. ally, should continue to play a role, despite his party's rout in parliamentary elections Monday and his unpopularity in the volatile, nuclear-armed nation. The U.S. is urging the Pakistani political leaders who won the elections to form a new government quickly and not press to reinstate the judges whom Musharraf ousted last year, Western diplomats and U.S. officials said Wednesday. If reinstated, the jurists likely would try to remove Musharraf from office. [Democracy] [Double standards]
• US Accused of Stalling Weapons Talks
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: February 21, 2008 Filed at 1:11 a.m. ET WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- The United States on Thursday rejected claims by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams that it is trying to stall negotiations on an international agreement to ban cluster bombs -- without even attending talks on the treaty. Delegates from more than 120 countries are negotiating a convention in New Zealand that would ban the use, production, trade and storage of cluster bombs that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.
• Iraq weapons dossier draft reveals role of 'spin doctor'· Final document shows 'striking similarities'
  · Press officer had access to secret intelligence
  Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Tuesday February 19 2008 This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday February 19 2008 on p12 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:03 on February 19 2008. Fresh evidence that a senior government press officer was closely involved in drawing up the government's discredited Iraq weapons dossier, despite official denials, was revealed yesterday. A document the Foreign Office tried to suppress shows that John Williams, its director of communications at the time, had access to secret intelligence as he prepared an early draft in 2002.  
  It states that there was "compelling evidence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa" - a claim which turned out to be untrue. These claims were reflected in the government's final dossier, published in late September 2002. This stated that Iraq was developing missiles "capable of reaching the UK sovereign base areas in Cyprus and Nato members (Greece and Turkey)". And the final dossier said there was "intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium in Africa". There is evidence of some of Williams's claims being questioned. He begins his draft with the words: "Iraq presents a uniquely dangerous threat to the world. No other country has twice launched wars of aggression against neighbours." In a margin someone has written: "Germany? US: Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico." [Disinformation]
• Pakistanis Deal Severe Defeat to Musharraf in Election
  Published: February 19, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections on Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States
  The results were interpreted here as a repudiation of Mr. Musharraf as well as the Bush administration, which has staunchly backed him for more than six years as its best bet in the campaign against the Islamic militants in Pakistan. American officials will have little choice now but to seek alternative allies from among the new political forces emerging from the vote.
• Unilateral Strike Called a Model For U.S. Operations in Pakistan
  By Joby Warrick and Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, February 19, 2008; Page A01 In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.
  The missiles killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA's dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda's core leadership in two years, and it involved, U.S. officials say, an unusual degree of autonomy by the CIA inside Pakistan. Having requested the Pakistani government's official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval. The government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was notified only as the operation was underway, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities. Officials say the incident was a model of how Washington often scores its rare victories these days in the fight against al-Qaeda inside Pakistan's national borders: It acts with assistance from well-paid sympathizers inside the country, but without getting the government's formal permission beforehand. [Imperialism] [Bizarre]
• Asian arms race gathers speed
  By John Feffer Diplomats remain upbeat about solving the nuclear stand-off with North Korea; optimists envision a peace treaty to replace the armistice that halted, but failed to formally end, the Korean War 55 years ago. Some leaders and scholars are even urging the transformation of the six-party talks over the Korean nuclear issue, involving the United States, Japan, China, Russia and the two Koreas, into a permanent peace structure in Northeast Asia
  The arms race in Northeast Asia undercuts all talk of peace in the region [Japanese remilitarisation]
• India and Israel Eye Iran
  Ninan Koshy | February 13, 2008
  Editor: John Feffer Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org Israel’s spy satellite launched by India in the third week of January considerably enhances Israel’s intelligence-gathering capability. The launch of the Tecsar satellite, also known as Polaris, also marks a new stage in India-Israeli strategic relations and adds a new factor in the complex security scenario in the Middle East. The Tecsar satellite is fitted with a large dish-like antenna to transmit and receive radar signals that can penetrate darkness and thick clouds. Built by Israeli Aerospace Industries, the Tecsar ranks among the world’s most advanced space systems.
  The real reason for the satellite launch is Iran. India’s launch of the new Tecsar, Israel’s advanced Israeli satellite, is equipped with a camera capable of taking pictures of Iranian soil through the masses of clouds in day or night conditions. Although the United States was opposed to the launch, it has nevertheless assigned India responsibility for helping to contain Iran.
  India has thus become an active collaborator in enhancing Israeli security, particularly vis-à-vis Iran.
  India’s interest in the proposed Iranian gas pipeline through Pakistan diminished sharply from the time the India-U.S. nuclear deal began to take shape. India has not participated in some of the recent discussions on the pipeline. While India has not officially withdrawn from the project, it is believed that the United States wants to undermine India-Iran economic relations to such an extent that New Delhi becomes a stakeholder in its plans against Iran.
• Stephen Zunes and the Struggle for Overseas Profits
  By Stephen Gowans
  Stephen Zunes, a professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, is bristling against what he calls the leftist attack on “independent” grassroots nonviolent activists who are trying to bring down “autocratic” governments and “dictatorships” in places like Zimbabwe, Belarus and Iran (1). People who have cast votes in these countries may be surprised to discover they’re living in dictatorships, but the U.S. government says they are, and “progressives” like Stephen Zunes are happy to lend credibility to Washington’s charges. “Independent” grassroots activists in these same countries may be surprised to hear they’re independent, despite the cataract of support they receive from U.S. and Western governments and Western ruling class foundations, but if Zunes wants to elevate them from fifth columnists to independent democracy activists, they’re pleased to receive his support. These days, Zunes’ bristling against the leftist attack may have something to do with the attack hitting too close to home (2). His association with dodgy U.S. ruling class foundations that hide the pursuit of U.S. foreign policy objectives behind a high-sounding commitment to peace has increasingly come under scrutiny. And judging by his reaction, he doesn’t like it (3). [Camouflage] [Manipulation] [Imperialism]
• IRAQ AND THE LESSONS OF VIETNAM: Introduction
  Authors: Lloyd C. Gardner; Marilyn B. Young DOI: 10.1080/14672710701527550 Publication Frequency: 4 issues per year Published in: Critical Asian Studies, Volume 39, Issue 3 September 2007 , pages 483 - 498
• Smugglers Return iPhones to China
  Ryan Pyle for The New York Times A store manager with an iPhone in Shanghai, where the iPhone costs about $555, more than the $400 in the United States. Published: February 18, 2008 SHANGHAI — Factories here churn out iPhones that are exported to the United States and Europe. Then thousands of them are smuggled right back into China.
  The strange journey of Apple’s popular iPhone, to nearly every corner of the world, shows what happens when the world’s hottest consumer product defies a company’s attempt to slowly introduce it in new markets. The iPhone has been swept up in a frenzy of global smuggling and word-of-mouth marketing that leads friends to ask friends, "While you’re in the U.S., would you mind picking up an iPhone for me?" These unofficial distribution networks help explain a mystery that analysts who follow Apple have been pondering: why is there a large gap between the number of iPhones that Apple says it sold last year, about 3.7 million, and the 2.3 million that are actually registered on the networks of its wireless partners in the United States and Europe? The answer now seems clear. For months, tourists, small entrepreneurs and smugglers of electronic goods have been buying iPhones in the United States and then shipping them overseas. [Globalisation] [IM] [Pricing]
• In U.S., Trade Hits Stiff Head Wind
  Proposed Deals Face Resistance
  By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 15, 2008; Page D01 As the Bush administration races to push free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea through Congress before leaving office next year, it is meeting a level of resistance observers call high even by the normally contentious standards of such debates.
  It happens as the administration is confronting the most hostile domestic environment toward free trade in years. Recent polls suggest more Americans than ever view globalization as negative, blaming free trade for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs that have moved overseas [Protectionism]
• U.S. sees Russia, China and OPEC financial threat
  By Randall Mikkelsen Reuters Tuesday, February 5, 2008; 4:12 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress on Tuesday. Such economic matters joined terrorism, nuclear proliferation and computer-network vulnerabilities as top U.S. security threats described by National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell in an annual assessment. McConnell said U.S. intelligence agencies had "concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to political ends." Russia, bolstered in part by oil revenues, was positioning itself to control an energy supply and transportation network from Europe to East Asia, and the Russian military had begun to reverse a long decline, he told the Senate Intelligence Committee. China has pursued a policy of global engagement out of a desire to expand its growing economy and obtain access markets, resources, technology and expertise, McConnell said. It seeks a constructive relationship with the United States and other countries, but as its influence grows "Beijing probably will increasingly expect its interests to be respected by other countries," he said.
  He said that despite North Korea's shutting down it its Yongbyon nuclear facility, U.S. intelligence agencies "remain uncertain" about its commitment to full denuclearization. It is believed to continue uranium enrichment and proliferation activities, he said. [HEU] [Financial sanctions] [Reserve]
• Islam, law and finance: the elusive divine
  Fred Halliday
  The recurrent political and media spasms over “sharia" or “Islamic law” too often avoid looking at the reality the terms purport to describe, says Fred Halliday 12 - 02 - 2008 A controversy over the relationship of what is termed sharia or "Islamic law" to wider legal systems was ignited on 7 February 2008 from an unlikely source: an academic lecture by the spiritual head of England's established church. The Archbishop of Canterbury's address explored the landscape of "plural jurisdiction" in Britain and considered with sympathy "what degree of accommodation the law of the land can and should give to minority communities with their own strongly entrenched legal and moral codes". The message conveyed from a text replete with caveats and circumlocutions was (in the words of Rowan Williams's preceding BBC radio interview) that "as a matter of fact certain provisions of sharia are already recognised" in society and law, and that their application is "unavoidable". The media furore that has ensued is as predictable as it is founded on widespread ignorance of the ostensible substance of the argument (see Tina Beattie, "Rowan Williams and sharia law", 12 February 2008). In this it is part of a wider pattern whereby news stories about aspects of "Islamic" activity and social practice - "Islamic law" or "Islamic banking" or "Islamic dress", for example - come to prominence and are circulated without a proper examination of the provenance and meaning of these terms. [Islam] [Finance]
• 2008: The Demise of Neoliberal Globalization
  Immanuel Wallerstein
  Commentary No. 226, Feb. 1, 2008 The ideology of neoliberal globalization has been on a roll since the early 1980s. It was not in fact a new idea in the history of the modern world-system, although it claimed to be one. It was rather the very old idea that the governments of the world should get out of the way of large, efficient enterprises in their efforts to prevail in the world market. The first policy implication was that governments, all governments, should permit these corporations freely to cross every frontier with their goods and their capital. The second policy implication was that the governments, all governments, should renounce any role as owners themselves of these productive enterprises, privatizing whatever they own. And the third policy implication was that governments, all governments, should minimize, if not eliminate, any and all kinds of social welfare transfer payments to their populations. This old idea had always been cyclically in fashion.
  The neoliberal counteroffensive was led by the right-wing governments of the United States and Great Britain (Reagan and Thatcher) plus the two main intergovernmental financial agencies - the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and these jointly created and enforced what came to be called the Washington Consensus.
  So what are the policy conclusions that governments and populations are drawing? There seem to be four in the offing. The first is the end of the role of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world, which renders impossible the continuance of the policy of super-indebtedness of both the government of the United States and its consumers. The second is the return to a high degree of protectionism, both in the global North and the global South. The third is the return of state acquisition of failing enterprises and the implementation of Keynesian measures. The last is the return of more social-welfare redistributive policies. [Globalisation] [Washington consensus] [Neocon] [Imperialism]
• Walking Away: The Least Bad Option
  Immanuel Wallerstein
  Commentary No. 227, Feb. 15, 2008 Except for a hardy band of neo-con optimists and the official apologists of the Bush regime, almost everyone is agreed today that the United States has gotten itself into a nasty, self-wounding mess in Iraq where it is fighting a drawn-out guerrilla war it cannot win. At the same time, a very large number of the critics of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, both in the United States and in Europe, repeatedly say that nonetheless the United States cannot just "walk away." What not walking away means is not very clear, but it seems to mean maintaining U.S. troops and bases in Iraq for a considerable length of time while the United States tries, vainly, to enable the Iraqi government under its tutelage to assert some kind of reasonable control over its territory and restore a modicum of peaceful life to its citizens. Let us explore why it is said that the United States cannot just "walk away."
• Whose Nuclear First Strike Strategy Is This Anyway?
  By Stephen Gowans
  Filed under: Imperialism, Iran, NGOs, Ruling class — gowans @ 11:48 pm In mid-January, former US Chief of Staff General John Shalikashvili and four top military leaders from European Nato countries released a report calling for a new Western military alliance that could act without UN authorization and use nuclear first strikes to prevent other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. The generals were justifiably denounced as Drs. Strangelove, but what was missed was the reality that the former military men hadn’t acted on their own, but were brought together to write their report by a think-tank whose board of directors includes chairmen and CEOs of America’s top corporations and investment firms. The recommendations the generals made were every bit as much those of America’s corporate elite as they were the generals’.
  The American sociologist William Domhoff has spent years asking who rules America?
  The problem is communicated to one of the foundations and think-tanks the upper class finances and directs. These include the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, the Business Council and dozens of others. [Thinktanks]
• Who Rules America?,
  by G. William Domhoff
  My book, Who Rules America?, presents detailed original information on how power and politics operate in the United States. The first edition came out in 1967 and is ranked 12th on the list of 50 best sellers in sociology between 1950 and 1995. A second edition, Who Rules America Now?, arrived in 1983 and landed at #43 on the same list. Third and fourth editions followed in 1998 and 2002, and the fifth edition, upon which most of this web site is based, came out in 2006.
• Bankrupting the American Republic: The Permanent War Economy and Soaring Deficits
  Chalmers Johnson
  The military adventurers of the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room," the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination. As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries. Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay -- or repudiate. This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (such as causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.
  Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our manufacturing base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures -- so-called "military Keynesianism," which I discuss in detail in my book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. By military Keynesianism, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.
  This brings U.S. spending for its military establishment during the current fiscal year (2008), conservatively calculated, to at least $1.1 trillion.
  This ideology I call "military Keynesianism" -- the determination to maintain a permanent war economy and to treat military output as an ordinary economic product, even though it makes no contribution to either
  The historian Thomas E. Woods, Jr., observes that, during the 1950s and 1960s, between one-third and two-thirds of all American research talent was siphoned off into the military sector. It is, of course, impossible to know what innovations never appeared as a result of this diversion of resources and brainpower into the service of the military, but it was during the 1960s that we first began to notice Japan was outpacing us in the design and quality of a range of consumer goods, including household electronics and automobiles. [Offshoring] [Military industrial complex] [Imperialism]
• Digby uses trade mission to attack US
  Outspoken minister says America 'stuck in past'
  Tim Webb in New York The Observer, Sunday February 17 2008 Article history · This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday February 17 2008 on p1 of the Business news & features section. It was last updated at 00:10 on February 17 2008. Digby Jones, Britain's trade and investment minister, has accused the US of being a protectionist economy and spoken of his fears that a new President will lead the country into 'another bout of isolationism'. On a UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) mission to the US last week, Lord Jones of Birmingham also told business leaders there that using tariffs and subsidies to try to protect the economy was 'pathetic'. 'Please don't listen to the siren voices of protectionism, it does not become you,' he told an audience of entrepreneurs and executives in Boston, Massachusetts. In an exclusive interview with The Observer, Jones also said the US was still struggling to cope with the impact of globalisation on its economy.
  Earlier this month Prince Andrew, who is the UK's special representative for UKTI, criticised the US for not seeking advice on how to deal with postwar Iraq from the UK, which he said had some experience of running a successful empire. [Globalisation] [Protectionism] [Imperialism]
• Dreams Stifled, Egypt’s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor
   Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times Published: February 17, 2008 CAIRO — The concrete steps leading from Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid’s first-floor apartment sag in the middle, worn down over time, like Mr. Sayyid himself. Once, Mr. Sayyid had a decent job and a chance to marry. But his fiancée’s family canceled the engagement because after two years, he could not raise enough money to buy an apartment and furniture.  Mr. Sayyid spun into depression and lost nearly 40 pounds. For months, he sat at home and focused on one thing: reading the Koran. Now, at 28, with a diploma in tourism, he is living with his mother and working as a driver for less than $100 a month. With each of life’s disappointments and indignities, Mr. Sayyid has drawn religion closer.
  With 60 percent of the region’s population under the age of 25, this youthful religious fervor has enormous implications for the Middle East. More than ever, Islam has become the cornerstone of identity, replacing other, failed ideologies: Arabism, socialism, nationalism.  
• The Dumbing Of America
  Call Me a Snob, but Really, We're a Nation of Dunces
  By Susan Jacoby Sunday, February 17, 2008; Page B01 "The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself." Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today's very different United States. Americans are in serious intellectual trouble -- in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.  
  That leads us to the third and final factor behind the new American dumbness: not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge. The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it's the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place  

• Pakistan Shuns C.I.A. Buildup Sought by U.S.
  By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER Published: January 27, 2008 WASHINGTON — The top two American intelligence officials traveled secretly to Pakistan early this month to press President Pervez Musharraf to allow the Central Intelligence Agency greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups are all active, according to several officials who have been briefed on the visit.
  But in the unannounced meetings on Jan. 9 with the two American officials — Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director — Mr. Musharraf rebuffed proposals to expand any American combat presence in Pakistan, either through unilateral covert C.I.A. missions or by joint operations with Pakistani security forces.
• Waving Goodbye to Hegemony
  By PARAG KHANNA Published: January 27, 2008 Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It’s as if the first decade of the 21st century didn’t happen — and almost as if history itself doesn’t happen. But the distribution of power in the world has fundamentally altered over the two presidential terms of George W. Bush, both because of his policies and, more significant, despite them. Maybe the best way to understand how quickly history happens is to look just a bit ahead.
  It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.
  Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. [Imperialism] [Decline] [Reserve]
• In the Heart of the Heart of Conspiracy
  By DAVID OSHINSKY Published: January 27, 2008 No American politician of the 20th century is more reviled by historians and opinion makers than Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the Wisconsin Republican whose 1950s anti-Communist crusade is synonymous with witch-hunting and repression. Actually, no politician even comes close. Herbert Hoover? True, the Great Depression occurred on his watch, goes the current wisdom, but Hoover can’t be blamed for a global catastrophe, and his economic programs paved the way for needed reforms. Richard Nixon? True, the Watergate scandal justified his resignation, but Nixon was a master statesman, we are reminded, whose initiatives produced détente with the Russians and an open door to China.
  For McCarthy, there’s been no such balancing act.
  McCarthy will continue to resonate on the fringes of the body politic because the conspiracy he championed — the disloyalty of powerful elites — goes back to the founding of our country and beyond. Redeem him? I can best respond by quoting the man himself, on another issue, near the end of his career. “This,” muttered the flummoxed McCarthy as the Senate moved to condemn his behavior, “is the most unheard-of thing I ever heard of.”
• The New Atlantic Century?
  Paul Rogers
  A valuable but flawed report on Nato's future highlights the real 21st-century security agenda. 24 - 01 - 2008 A new report on the future of western security was published on 10 January 2008 under the auspices of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington and the Noaber Foundation. The media coverage it received focused mainly on its recommendation that Nato retain the option of a first-use policy on nuclear weapons. This is understandable, but also a pity: for the report - in its omissions as much as its main propositions - is more deeply revealing of the true condition of "western security" in the first decade of the new century.
  The key assumption underlying this approach deserves to be brought out. This is that the north Atlantic is a fundamentally civilised community that is under threat from the forces of disorder - by implication, the barbarians at the gate. This notion of an essentially benign order is at the core of the western security paradigm: "we" embody liberal democracy rooted in the free market, which together represent the current apogee of world civilisation. In code, Towards a Grand Strategy... implies that a "new Atlantic century" is required to rescue the "new American century" from its recent problems. [Imperialism]
• Neither Supply-Side Theory Nor Keynesian Remedies Can Save Us Now Farewell to Old Economic Nostrums
  By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
  January 22, 2008 With his tax rebate policy, President Bush has put economic policy back on a Keynesian basis. Will it work? During the two decades it was in effect, supply-side economics had restorative effects on the American economy. Its predecessor, Keynesian demand management, stimulated demand more than supply. Consequently, over time the trade-offs between employment and inflation worsened, and for a while it appeared that inflation and unemployment would rise together. The breakdown of the Keynesian policy opened the door for the Reagan administration's supply-side approach. By following Nobel economist Robert Mundell's advice to "reverse the policy mix," the supply-side policy allowed the US economy to grow without paying for the growth with rising rates of inflation. However, the new macroeconomic policy was not a cure-all, and its success in banishing worsening "Philips curve" trade-offs between inflation and employment masked the appearance of new problems, such as the loss of jobs and GDP growth to offshoring, problems from deregulation, and the growing concentration of income in fewer hands. [Offshoring] [Globalisation]
• Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told
  Ian Traynor in Brussels Tuesday January 22, 2008 The Guardian A British Trident missile. Photograph: AP The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists. Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
  Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism. · The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. · Climate change and energy security, [Bizarre]
• 'Enemy combatant' receives 17-year US jail term
  Haroon Siddique and agencies Tuesday January 22, 2008 Guardian Unlimited Jose Padilla being escorted by federal marshals in a January 2006. Photograph: AP/Alan Diaz A US citizen held for more than three years without charge as an "enemy combatant" was today sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison for conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim overseas, including in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia. Jose Padilla, a 37-year-old Muslim convert, was originally arrested in 2002 and accused of planning to detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb and blow up buildings in Washington, but he was never charged in relation to those alleged offences.
  District judge Marcia Cooke today said she was giving Padilla some credit - over the objections of federal prosecutors - for his lengthy military detention at a navy jail in South Carolina.
  The men were convicted in August last year of providing material support to violent Islamist groups. Cooke said that while the crimes were "serious", there was "no evidence the defendants had personally killed or maimed anyone".
  The key piece of physical evidence was a five-page form Padilla supposedly filled out in July 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. [Bizarre] [Human rights]
• Padilla Sentenced to More Than 17 Years in Prison
  By KIRK SEMPLE and CARMEN GENTILE Published: January 22, 2008 MIAMI — Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn-born convert to Islam who became one of the first Americans designated “an enemy combatant,” was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison by a federal judge in Miami on Tuesday for his conviction on charges that he conspired to help Islamic terrorists around the world.
  “There is no evidence that these defendants personally killed, maimed or kidnapped” anyone, said Judge Cooke before announcing her sentencing decision
  Following the defendants’ convictions last Aug. 16, some legal experts said the success of the Justice Department’s strategy cemented a new prosecutorial model in terrorism cases by relying on a little-used conspiracy law that required very little in the way of concrete evidence showing Mr. Padilla’s intent or ability to carry out the crimes. [Human rights]
• Stocks Plunge Worldwide on Fears of a U.S. Recession
  Watching the losses outside the Bombay Stock Exchange on Monday.
  By MARK LANDLER and HEATHER TIMMONS Published: January 21, 2008 FRANKFURT — Fears that the United States is in a recession reverberated around the world on Monday, sending stock markets from Frankfurt to Bombay into a tailspin and puncturing the hopes of many investors that Europe and Asia will be able to sidestep an American downturn.
• The Islamic Imagery Project
  The Internet is a critical means of communication for the newest generation of terrorist groups. The salafi jihadi movement in particular has used the Internet to pass strategic, operational, and tactical instruction to its followers, becoming adept at utilizing the anonymity and global reach of online communications to promote its message. Visual imagery provides a key aspect of the terrorists’ message in that it allows these groups to paint a picture of their objectives, their enemies, and their strategy through graphics, photographs, and symbols. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has provided an open source catalogue of these images and their meaning. The Islamic Imagery Project: Visual Motifs in Jihadi Internet Propaganda provides analyses for one-hundred key motifs that appear throughout the jihadists’ visual propaganda. It is our hope that this project will be useful to scholars and practitioners alike. We welcome comments and feedback. [Imperialism]
• Israel's Winemaking Revolution
  International consumers used to shun Israeli wines, but Golan Heights Winery managed to create a market for world-class wines—and retool an industry by Stacy Perman
  Small Biz According to the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute, Israeli wine exports hit $21 million in 2007, up 42% from 2006 Stacy Perman The Golan Heights Winery vineyards climb from the Sea of Galilee to snow-capped Mount Hermon near Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria. A picturesque region of rolling hills, waterfalls, and gorges, the Golan Heights is perhaps best known as the contentious area Israel captured from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967—territory still claimed by Syria today. However, the Golan Heights Winery has added an unexpected business significance to this 460-square-mile rocky plateau. Established in 1983, the winery is credited with remaking the Israeli wine industry and slowly transforming Israel's reputation as a maker of unexciting, syrupy kosher brands to a producer of world-class, award-winning wines that appeal to sophisticated international consumers.
• Chess champion Bobby Fischer dies
  In pictures: Bobby Fischer David Batty and agencies Friday January 18, 2008 Guardian Unlimited One of the world's greatest chess geniuses, Bobby Fischer, has died at the age of 64, Icelandic TV and radio said today. A spokesman for Fischer, Gardar Sverrisson, said the former world chess champion died in a Reykjavik hospital yesterday. Information on the cause of death has not been released. Fischer, who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, gained fame in his teens. At 14, he became the youngest player ever to win the US championship; at 15, he became the youngest international grandmaster in history. He won the US championship eight times in eight attempts.
  He gained international fame in 1972 when he beat the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in what was dubbed the "match of the century" to become the first US chess champion for a century.
  Fischer then fell into obscurity before resurfacing to play an exhibition rematch against Spassky in 1992 on the resort island of Sveti Stefan off Montenegro. Fischer won, but the game was played in violation of international sanctions imposed on Slobodan Milosevic, then president of Yugoslavia. Fischer became a wanted man, but managed to evade authorities for 12 years until July 16 2004 when he was arrested and later detained in Japan. On March 22 2005, he was freed and granted Icelandic citizenship. He renounced his US citizenship and lived in Iceland until his death. {human rights] [Sanctions]
• New U.S. audit questions efficacy of Iran sanctions
  Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:17am EST By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - The economic impact of U.S. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program is unclear and Iran has signed about $20 billion in energy contracts with foreign firms since 2003, said a U.S. audit report. "U.S. officials and experts report that U.S. sanctions have specific impacts on Iran; however, the extent of such impacts is difficult to determine," said the report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, which was obtained by Reuters on Tuesday before its release later this week. "Other evidence raises questions about the extent of reported economic impacts," it added.
  In a written response to the GAO, senior Treasury Department official Stuart Levey said Iran was experiencing "increased economic, financial and political isolation" because of U.S. and international sanctions. He said Iran's state-owned banks were becoming increasingly isolated and their viability threatened, adding that an estimated 25,000 transactions with Iranian entities worth over $5 billion had been rejected since 1997. No details were given of the kind of transactions or where these figures came from. But since 2003, the Iranian government had signed contracts worth about $20 billion with foreign firms to develop its energy resources, said the report, adding that it was unclear if all those deals would be fulfilled. It also said strict U.S. sanctions on state-owned Iranian banks could be circumvented if those banks turned to other financial institutions or funded their activities in other currencies than the U.S. dollar. [Sanctions] [Financial sanctions] [Reserve]
• The 2008 Index of Economic Freedom
  Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal The 2008 Index of Economic Freedom covers 162 countries across 10 specific freedoms such as trade freedom, business freedom, investment freedom, and property rights [Sanctions]
• Kenya: Stable Democracy or Meltdown?
  Immanuel Wallerstein Commentary No. 225, Jan. 15, 2008 On December 27, 2007, there were presidential and parliamentary elections in Kenya. The outside world was largely indifferent. Then suddenly the headlines spoke of ethnic violence on a large scale. The Western press spoke of the danger of a "meltdown" and the pervasiveness in Africa of ethnic conflicts. There were urgent appeals for the two opposing leaders to come together and make a compromise. This has not yet happened and is unlikely to happen.
• U.S. sending 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan
  By David Morgan Reuters Tuesday, January 15, 2008; 12:22 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will send an additional force of about 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan this spring to help NATO troops and Afghan security forces confront rising Taliban violence, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. The U.S. troop expansion, which increases the number of U.S. forces deployed to Afghanistan by more than 10 percent, follows months of U.S. efforts to persuade NATO allies to provide extra combat forces.
• With friends like these ...
  Tom Hodgkinson The Guardian, Monday January 14 2008
  Facebook has 59 million users - and 2 million new ones join each week. But you won't catch Tom Hodgkinson volunteering his personal information - not now that he knows the politics of the people behind the social networking site I despise Facebook. This enormously successful American business describes itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people around you". But hang on. Why on God's earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks in California? What was wrong with the pub?
• Kenyan president lost election, U.S. exit poll indicates
  By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 NAIROBI, Kenya — An exit poll carried out on behalf of a U.S. government-backed foundation indicated that Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki suffered a resounding defeat in last month's disputed election, according to officials with knowledge of the document. The poll by the Washington-based International Republican Institute — not yet publicly released — further undermines Kibaki's claims of a narrow re-election victory. The outcome has sparked protests and ethnically driven clashes nationwide, killing hundreds.
• Bush's last throw against Iran
  By M K Bhadrakumar
  Playing around with the Persians can be risky - especially when the endgame nears. US President George W Bush is learning this civilizational truth. He could have learned from the Jimmy Carter administration. The similarity is striking. A beleaguered White House increasingly looks irrelevant while the alienated country keenly searches for an idea of leadership that can offer a clean break with the past. That was also how the Carter administration looked 30 years ago. What can a superpower do if someone "threatens" it? The Pentagon warned on Monday that five small Iranian speedboats "threatened" a powerful US fleet comprising one frigate, a destroyer and a cruiser in the Strait of Hormuz by coming within 500 meters of them. It warned of "provocative actions that could lead to a dangerous incident in the future". Tehran calmly shrugged it off, "That is something normal that takes place every now and then for each party, and it is settled after identification of the two parties." Surely, the US can attack Iran in retribution. That is always the prerogative of a superpower in a unipolar world. That will also be fully in accord with the Bush administration's doctrine of pre-emptive war. The influential Israeli lobby in Washington would even ensure a bipartisan consensus, despite the divisiveness and acrimony in US politics in an election year. Russian missiles for Iran But there is a rider. A war against Iran may not be an option for long
  Actually, the danger to the Bush legacy comes from faraway places. Continued delay in constructively engaging Iran will only open the gateway wider for the international community to encroach into a region that until four years ago used to be the exclusive strategic preserve of the US. China is already wading deep into the region, and Russia too. The S-300 missiles from Russia are a sign that US dominance of the Middle East is in serious jeopardy.
• Historical Perspectives on States, Markets and Capitalism, East and West
  Giovanni Arrighi
  Giovanni Arrighi, an authority on the political economy and geopolitics of world social change, here reflects comparatively on states and markets East and West at the dawn of capitalism. Ranging widely across Smith, Marx, Weber and Braudel, he assesses the logic and interplay of China’s tribute trade system and Europe’s emerging capitalism. This article draws on and extends a chapter from his new book, Adam Smith in Beijing. Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, which looks across the last five hundred years to consider the emerging position of East Asia in an epoch that marks the end of US hegemony. MS This article was posted at Japan Focus on January 10, 2008.
• The world’s third spaces
  Saskia Sassen
  Between national and global levels, a fresh landscape of territory, authority and rights is being opened. It may look messy, but it is part of a new reality in the making, says Saskia Sassen. 8 - 01 - 2008 A key yet much overlooked feature of the current period is the proliferation of partial, often highly specialised, global assemblages of bits of territory, authority and rights once firmly ensconced in national institutional frames. These assemblages cut across the binary of "national vs global" - this being the usual way of attempting to understand what is in fact genuinely new. Saskia Sassen is professor in the department of sociology at Columbia University and at the London School of Economics. Her books include Losing Control? Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization (Columbia University Press, 1996), The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton University Press, 2001), and Territory, Authority, and Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton University Press 2006) These emergent assemblages inhabit both national and global institutional and territorial settings. They span the globe in the form of trans-local geographies connecting multiple, often thick, sub-national spaces - institutional, territorial, subjective. One aspect that matters here is that these often thick, sub-national settings are building-blocks for new global geographies. They do not run through supranational institutions that [Globalisation]
• Israel planned 1991 strike on NKorea-Syria ship: report
  Jan 9 02:41 Israeli agents prepared to strike a ship suspected of smuggling missiles from North Korea to Syria in 1991 but cancelled it at the 11th hour under US pressure, a Japanese newspaper reported Wednesday. Undercover agents of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency secretly attached a guidance system for an airstrike on a cargo vessel believed to be carrying 23 short-range Scud missiles to Syria, the Yomiuri Shimbun said. The Yomiuri, reporting from Jerusalem, said it spoke to one of the agents involved in the operation, whose name was transliterated into Japanese as Michael Ross. Ross said he and two colleagues disguised themselves as workers for shipping carriers and headed to Casablanca, Morocco. [Media] [Legality]
• US wants Pakistan to bite the bullet
  By Syed Saleem Shahzad
  KARACHI - After more than six years, Pakistan finds itself in probably the most difficult position it has been in since signing on as a partner in the US-led "war on terror". The political turmoil created by the recent assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto and the consolidation of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the country just months ahead of another Taliban spring offensive in Afghanistan have made Washington decidedly anxious that Islamabad do something decisive about the situation. But while Pakistan wants to remain on side with the US, and the West, by taking appropriate action against militancy, this carries with it the grave danger of exacerbating the situation, and opening up the country to further terror. A senior Pakistani security official elaborated for Asia Times Online, "We have actually been thrown into a deep quagmire where we are not left with many options. The CIA's presence in Pakistan has made it impossible for Pakistan to handle the Taliban problem independently and through dialogue. On the other hand, there is no military solution on the horizon against the Taliban and another [Pakistani army] operation against militants would cause more than serious repercussions." [Dilemma]
• Degrees of Confidence on U.S.-Iran Naval Incident
  By Mike Nizza January 10, 2008, 9:40 am Tags: foreign affairs, iran, military, united states Updated, 3:40 p.m. Eastern. Scroll down for the latest. The list of those who are less than fully confident in the Pentagon’s video/audio mashup of aggressive maneuvers by Iranian boats near American warships in the Strait of Hormuz now includes the Pentagon itself. Unnamed Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip, which was released on Monday night with a disclaimer that it was recorded separately from the video images and merged with them later, is not directly traceable to the Iranian military. That undercuts one of the most menacing elements from the Pentagon’s assertion that Iranian forces threatened the Navy ships: The voice on the radio saying, “I am coming to you. … You will explode after … minutes.” [Disinformation]
• W.H.O. Says Iraq Civilian Death Toll Higher Than Cited
  By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. Published: January 10, 2008 The World Health Organization on Wednesday waded into the controversial subject of Iraqi civilian deaths, publishing a study that estimated that the number of deaths from the start of the war through June 2006 was at least twice as high as the oft-cited Iraq Body Count.
  The study is the latest in a long series of attempts to come up with realistic numbers of civilian deaths. The numbers are politically fraught, and researchers’ work has been further complicated by problems in collecting data while working in a war zone. The estimates have varied widely. The Iraq Body Count, a nongovernmental group based in Britain that bases its numbers on news media accounts, put the number of civilians dead at 47,668 during the same period of time as the World Health Organization study, the W.H.O. report said. President Bush in the past used a number that was similar to one put forward at the time by the Iraq Body Count. But another study, by Johns Hopkins, which has come under criticism for its methodology, cited an estimate of about 600,000 dead between the war’s start, in March 2003, and July 2006. The World Health Organization said its study, based on interviews with families, indicated with a 95 percent degree of statistical certainty that between 104,000 and 223,000 civilians had died. It based its estimate of 151,000 deaths on that range.
• U.S. Attack in Iraq Is No Surprise to Many Insurgents
  By STEPHEN FARRELL Published: January 9, 2008 ESAIWID, Iraq — With extraordinary secrecy, and even an information blackout aimed at most of their Iraqi Army comrades, American troops began a major offensive on Tuesday to drive Sunni insurgents from strongholds in Diyala Province. But many insurgents still managed to flee the first villages the Americans went into, showing just how difficult it is to trap the elusive militants.
  Because at least half the insurgents escaped before an offensive last June, American planners deliberately kept most Iraqi units in the dark before this one, a tactic that suggests they cannot fully trust the allies who are supposed to pick up more of the fighting as American troops scale back their presence this year.
  Nevertheless, some advance units noticed an unusual number of women and children fleeing south in cars in recent days, and residents of Esaiwid said Tuesday that the insurgent fighters left the village days ago, although some appear to have remained behind or returned to plant car bombs.
• We Still Need the Big Guns
  By CHARLES J. DUNLAP Jr.
  Published: January 9, 2008 Washington THE relative calm that America’s armed forces have imposed on Iraq is certainly grounds for cautious optimism. But it also raises some obvious questions: how was it achieved and what does it mean for future defense planning? Many analysts understandably attribute the success to our troops’ following the dictums of the Army’s lauded new counterinsurgency manual. While the manual is a vast improvement over its predecessors, it would be a huge mistake to take it as proof — as some in the press, academia and independent policy organizations have — that victory over insurgents is achievable by anything other than traditional military force. Unfortunately, starry-eyed enthusiasts have misread the manual to say that defeating an insurgency is all about winning hearts and minds with teams of anthropologists, propagandists and civil-affairs officers armed with democracy-in-a-box kits and volleyball nets. They dismiss as passé killing or capturing insurgents. Actually, the reality is quite different. The lesson of Iraq is that old-fashioned force works. Add 30,000 of the world’s finest infantry to the 135,000 battle-hardened troops already there, as we have done, and the outnumbered insurgency is in serious trouble. Detain thousands more Iraqis as security threats, and the potential for violence inevitably declines. Press reports indicate that the number of Iraqis in prison doubled over the last year, to 30,000 from 15,000; and while casualty figures are sketchy, military officials told USA Today last September that the number of insurgents killed was already 25 percent higher in 2007 than in all of 2006. And while the new counterinsurgency doctrine has an anti-technology flavor that seems to discourage the use of air power especially, savvy ground-force commanders in Iraq got the right results last year by discounting those admonitions. Few Americans are likely to be aware that there was a fivefold increase in airstrikes during 2007 as compared with the previous year, which went hand in hand with the rest of the surge strategy. Going high-tech once again proved to be highly successful.
  Moreover, does anyone really believe that creating corps of civil affairs officers will deter North Korea or Iran? [Bizarre] [Imperialism]
• Pushback to Unilateralism: the China-India-Russia Alliance
  Tarique Niazi | January 3, 2008
  As U.S. unilateralism has asserted the role of the United States as the sole global superpower, the rest of the world is exploring a variety of ways of pushing back. One is the creation of several new regional security consortiums which are independent of the U.S. One of the most important is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security alliance led by Russia and China, with several non-voting members including India. Its rising economic, political and military profile this year can serve as a useful lens through which to view this geopolitical pushback. It is based on promoting a multipolar world, distributing power along multiple poles in the international system, such as the United States, Europe, Asia-Eurasia and the Middle East,1 while also promoting the multilateralism of international cooperation.2 In recent years, Russia and China have stepped up their advocacy for a multipolar-multilateral alternative. Multipolarity Russia is promoting its vision of a multipolar world hinging on the consensus-based decision making that it wants steered through global institutions such as the United Nations. Chinese President Hu Jintao has outlined a similar vision. At a caucus of the leaders of Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa in Berlin, Germany in June of 2007 he said: "Developing countries should strengthen cooperation and consolidate solidarity to promote the establishment of a multipolar world and a democratic international relationship.3 India, however, treads cautiously between the competing visions of a world with multiple poles of power. [SCO]
• UK living standards outstrip US
  From The Sunday Times January 6, 2008 Living standards outstrip those across the Atlantic for first time in over a centuryDavid Smith, Economics Editor LIVING standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America for the first time since the 19th century, according to a report by the respected Oxford Economics consultancy. The calculations suggest that, measured by gross domestic product per capita, Britain can now hold its head up high in the economic stakes after more than a century of playing second fiddle to the Americans. It says that GDP per head in Britain will be £23,500 this year, compared with £23,250 in America, reflecting not only the strength of the pound against the dollar but also the UK economy’s record run of growth and rising incomes going back to the early 1990s
  Although many people will be surprised by the figures, Americans have long complained that average incomes have been stagnant in their country. One often-quoted statistical comparison suggests that in real terms the median male full-time salary in America is no higher now than it was in the 1970s.
• The Cold War in Hindsight
  After a brush with calamity in 1983, both sides moved away from confrontation. Reviewed by Richard Rhodes Sunday, January 6, 2008; Page BW06 FOR THE SOUL OF MANKIND The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War By Melvyn P. Leffler | Hill and Wang. 586 pp. $35 A FAILED EMPIRE The Soviet Union in the Cold War From Stalin to Gorbachev By Vladislav M. Zubok | Univ. of North Carolina. 467 pp. $39.95
  Vladislav Zubok is a young Russian scholar who teaches at Temple University. His book, though focused more on the Soviet side of the story, is far richer than Leffler's in new information and fresh interpretation. Zubok reveals the full extent of Stalin's brutal post-World War II suppression of the Soviet people, including withholding strategic grain reserves to induce an artificial famine (similar to the Terror Famine of the 1930s) while increasing taxes on farmers by 150 percent. He demonstrates that the Berlin Blockade of 1948, when the United States and Britain supplied the people of the western zones of Berlin with food and coal by air after Stalin cut off road and rail access, "became a propaganda fiasco and a strategic failure" for the Soviet dictator that led directly to the formation of NATO and the creation of West Germany. Stalin's "way of getting back at the arrogant Americans," Zubok reports, "was to support Kim Il Sung's plan to annex South Korea." To involve the United States in the Korean War, Stalin "deliberately abstained from the crucial vote at the United Nations that proclaimed North Korea an aggressor state" -- a far more satisfactory explanation than the longstanding claim that the Soviet ambassador unintentionally missed the vote. [Bizarre] [Korean War cause]
• Confidence in America
  The Best Change the Next President Can Make
  By Madeleine K. Albright
  Monday, January 7, 2008; Page A17 I believe the most precious gift the next president could bestow upon America is an end to the politics of fear. Fear, of course, has its place. Seven decades ago, the world did not fear Hitler enough. Today, Iraq remains a powder keg, Afghanistan a struggle, Iran a potential danger and North Korea a puzzle not yet solved. Pakistan combines all the elements that give us an international migraine. Al-Qaeda and its offshoots deserve our most urgent attention, because when people say they want to kill us, we would be fools not to take them at their word. Still, we have had an overdose of fear in recent times.
• The Pakistan-Afghanistan abyss
  Paul Rogers
  The killing of Benazir Bhutto makes the United States's predicament in an already critical region even tougher. 4 - 01 - 2008 The last days of 2007 were marked by major concerns by western military forces over the growing influence of Taliban militias in much of Afghanistan, as well as the continued activities of the al-Qaida movement on both sides of the border with Pakistan. These worries predated the assassination of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on 27 December 2007, and have been intensified by its circumstances and its messy aftermath. There are now 51,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, but they are still unable to cope with the resurgence. Of these troops, 40,000 are under Nato command in the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf): 15,000 from the United States, 25,000 from other Nato countries. The remaining 11,000 troops are almost all from the United States, with some special forces from other Nato states; together they are engaged under US command in intensive counterinsurgency operations in the southeast of the country.
• Minister quits after starring role in porn film
  By Sean Yoong in Kuala Lumpur Published: 03 January 2008 Malaysia's health minister resigned yesterday after admitting he and a female friend were the couple who appeared in a secretly filmed sex video, which has severely embarrassed the government in an election year. A one-hour DVD circulated anonymously last week showed Chua Soi Lek, a married man with three children, performing sexual acts with the woman in a hotel room. Mr Chua, 61, admitted that he was the man in the video and described the woman as a "personal friend." He refused to elaborate.
  The party's president, Ong Ka Ting, said the party accepted Mr Chua's resignation, and condemned those responsible for filming the video secretly.
  Mr Chua said he did not make the film, suggesting it was made by his political rivals. Lim Guan Eng, secretary general of the opposition Democratic Action Party, said Mr Chua's fate could indicate a factional dispute in the Malaysian Chinese Association, which has periodically suffered intense in-fighting. "Power struggles... are common in the jostling for positions before general elections, which benefit individual selfish interests at the expense of public interests," Mr Lim said. As health minister, Mr Chua had been praised for cutting bureaucratic delays in medical services and working to combat Aids, smoking and junk-food consumption. He is the highest-ranking politician to be caught in a sex scandal since former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was expelled from the ruling party for allegedly sodomising his family's driver. [Media]
• Commentary: Sins of omission and sins of commission haunt Bush in Pakistan
  By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Wednesday, January 2, 2008 In the real world, there are consequences. For every action there’s a reaction, and often even inaction triggers a reaction. The unfolding disaster in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is in part a reaction to a series of inactions and actions by the Bush administration during the last six years. Bush and Company took their eyes off the ball and became preoccupied with the sideshow of their own creation in Iraq as things went sideways and backward in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then they outsourced much of the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda to Pakistani Pres. Pervez Musharraf. After the attacks on America on 9/11, President Bush quite rightly took aim at al Qaeda and the Taliban government in Afghanistan that was sheltering the terrorist group responsible for those attacks. A relatively small group of U.S. special operators rented enough tribal leaders and their armies and, backed by American air power, were able to topple the Taliban government and put al Qaeda on the run. A force of only 7,000 U.S. Army and Marine troops went in to chase the bad guys.
• Events Near and Far Overshadow Bush's Agenda
  By Amy Gardner Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, January 2, 2008; Page A02 On the first day of his last year in the White House, President Bush returned to Washington with an ambitious agenda for 2008, including tackling the mortgage lending crisis and securing more money from Congress for Iraq.
  Meanwhile, the president's planned Middle East trip, which begins Tuesday, must compete for attention with the political crises in Pakistan and Kenya and the ongoing negotiations with North Korea to declare the extent of its nuclear arsenal. "The next couple of weeks for the president are going to be overshadowed by events that he cannot control, meaning Pakistan, North Korea, but also Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina," said James A. Thurber, an American University presidential scholar. [Causality]
• When Anti-Immigrant Is Anti-Business
  Republican Presidential candidates, facing intense pressure to talk tough on immigration, are losing some support from the business community by Moira Herbst Mark Gould has been a lifelong Republican. The self-described libertarian and president of Gould Construction in Glenwood Springs, Colo., has been a registered Republican for 30 years, and he served a six-year stint as the chairman of his county's Republican Party. But Gould is a Republican no longer. Exasperated over the GOP's increasingly harsh rhetoric about restricting immigration, Gould switched his registration to Independent two weeks ago. "Extremists have hijacked the Republican Party," says Gould, who says he employs a staff of 125, including legal immigrants. "If I had to pick today, I'd go with [Senator Barack] Obama [for President]. He's the most outspoken and realistic about reform." [Offshoring] [Labour] [Globalisation]
• Tide Is Shifting On U.S. Exports Companies Finding Markets Overseas For Niche Items
  By Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, December 26, 2007; Page A01 CINCINNATI -- Challenged by a troubled U.S. economy and the steeply falling dollar, a growing number of U.S. manufacturers are making up for slowing domestic sales by expanding them overseas, often with sophisticated products. Once fingered as a prime culprit in the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs, global business is shaping up as a bulwark against what some analysts fear is a looming recession. Some forecasters predict that the export boom will allow the United States to cut its huge trade deficit. An expanding foreign appetite for capital goods such as tractors, medical equipment and electrical machinery is driving much of the boom. Much of that growth is in China, the fourth-largest export market for U.S. goods, where U.S. sales are growing 17 percent this year, according to federal officials. In the first nine months of this year, sales of U.S. aircraft to China are up 30 percent and plastics are up 37 percent.
• How Bhutto Won Washington
  By ELISABETH BUMILLER Published: December 30, 2007 WASHINGTON b BENAZIR BHUTTO always understood Washington more than Washington understood her. Ms. Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader and two-time prime minister, who was assassinated in Rawalpindi on Thursday as she campaigned for the office a third time, had a more extensive network of powerful friends in the capital’s political and media elite than almost any other foreign leader. Over the years, she scrupulously cultivated those friends, many from her days at Harvard and Oxford. She was rewarded when her connections — at the White House, in Congress and within the foreign policy establishment — helped propel her into power in Pakistan. But in the end, with yet another American administration behind her, Ms. Bhutto’s Washington network only underscored how little the United States fathomed the feudal politics of South Asia, and its own ability to control events in the cauldron of Pakistan.